Jz. Hua et al., RELIABLE COMPUTATION OF PHASE-STABILITY USING INTERVAL-ANALYSIS - CUBIC EQUATION OF STATE MODELS, Computers & chemical engineering, 22(9), 1998, pp. 1207-1214
The reliable prediction of phase stability is a challenging computatio
nal problem in chemical process simulation, optimization and design. T
he phase stability problem can be formulated either as a minimization
problem or as an equivalent nonlinear equation solving problem. Conven
tional solution methods are initialization dependent, and may fail by
converging to trivial or non-physical solutions or to a point that is
a local but not global minimum. Thus there has been considerable recen
t interest in developing more reliable techniques for stability analys
is. In this paper we demonstrate, using cubic equation of state models
, a technique that can solve the phase stability problem with complete
reliability. The technique, which is based on interval analysis, is i
nitialization independent, and if properly implemented provides a math
ematical guarantee that the correct solution to the phase stability pr
oblem has been found. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv
ed.