9522886 Floudas This award addresses the integration of chemical process design and control. The design of a process determines the properties of variable interaction, disturbance rejection, and set-point tracking, which comprise its inherent controllability. Process design synthesis unusually seeks the process that extremizes some economic objective without consideration of controllability. The goal of this research is to study ald develop a systematic approach for the interaction of design and control that will take into account dynamic models of the chemical process. In particular, the research will focus on (1) the study of a new optimization-based framework that can address nonlinear problems with continuous and integer variables in the presence of both differential and algebraic constraints, (2) the development of new methods for the interaction of design and control that will address the issues of model uncertainties and disturbances during operation for steady state and dynamic performance, and (3) the application of the new framework for the interaction of design and control to distillation column synthesis, reactor-separator-recycle systems, and batch distillation columns. If successful, this research will provide new insights on the design of chemical process facilities that could yield improved output, reduced production cost, and reduced environmental impact.
