Integration of simulated annealing to a simulation tool for dynamic optimization of chemical processes

Dynamic optimization of processes in chemical industry became important in the last decade. Simulated annealing belongs to these optimization procedur es, which allow to reach the global optimum, but are very time-consuming. I n this paper, the simulated annealing algorithm has been formulated in a wa y to enable direct call of process simulators coded in the commercial simul ation tool SPEEDUP. We apply simulated annealing for the determination of o peration policies in a binary distillation. The developed approach allows t he prediction of reflux flow rate and reboiler duty in order to minimize th e operation time for product switchover of the column. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sc ience S.A. All rights reserved.