A general mathematical programming approach for process plant layout

The generation of a good layout is an important stage in the design of a ne w plant or the retrofit of an existing facility. Layout decisions affect pi ping, electrics, instrumentation and therefore have a great impact on the t otal plant cost. Moreover, layout has a large impact on the safety, operabi lity and maintainability of any chemical plant. This paper presents a gener al mathematical programming approach for addressing the problem of allocati ng items of equipment in a given two or three dimensional space. The proble m is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model where equipment of various sizes and geometries are taken into account. The objective func tion to be minimized accounts for the total transport, connection, land and floor construction cost. This optimization procedure results in the coordi nates of each unit (location), the total piping length, and the land occupi ed. Three case studies are presented to illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.