Steady-state operability characteristics of reactors

Operability analysis helps the process designer to consider process control issues quite early in the design process. This analysis should lead to the calculation of a measure which quantifies the operability of a design. Sea rch for this measure has been an active area of research in the last two de cades. Recently. Vinson and Georgakis proposed a steady-state operability i ndex (OI) involving both the servo and regulatory aspects. Their primary fo cus was on linear systems. This paper demonstrates the utility of the OI ap proach to chemical reactors. Two designs of a nonlinear CSTR, with and with out multiple steady states, are examined. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. Al l rights reserved.