AN INTEGRATED COMPUTES AIDED SYSTEM FOR INTEGRATED DESIGN OF CHEMICALPROCESSES

In this paper, an Integrated Computer Aided System (ICAS), which is pa rticularly suitable for solving problems related to integrated design of chemical processes; is presented. ICAS features include a model gen erator (generation of problem specific models including model simplifi cation and model reduction), a simulator (use of problem specific simu lation strategies for steady state and dynamic simulation), toolboxes (thermodynamic toolbox, synthesis toolbox, control toolbox, design too lbox and analysis toolbox), and an interface for problem defintion. Ea ch toolbox solves aspecific set of problems and communicates with all other computational tools available in ICAS. A large range of thermody namic models for estimation of the necessary thermo-physical propertie s, a large range of computational algorithms for determination of vari ous types of phase diagrams, algorithms for process synthesis, design, control form the basis for the toolboxes. The available features of I CAS are highlighted through a case study involving the separation of b inary azeotropic mixtures. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.