Process Optimisation

Process Optimisation documents the proceedings of a three-day Symposium organized by the Midlands Branch of The Institution of Chemical Engineers, held at the University of Nottingham, on 7-9 April 1987. The initiative for this Symposium on Process Optimization came from Dr. K.C. Mecklenburgh, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Nottingham, who was Chairman of the Organizing Committee from its inception until his death in November 1986. Mecklenburgh was a scholarly man, an acknowledged authority on Plant Layout and Safety, and a man very active in all aspects of the Institution's affairs. This volume contains 27 papers organized into three sections and follows the development of Process Plant from conception to operation. The papers in Section 1 discuss Project Selection, with an emphasis on financial implications, resource availability, and energy matters. Section 2 is devoted to Process Design where detailed optimization possibilities are considered including safety and hazard assessment. Section 3 covers Plant Operation where condition monitoring, revamp, and computing and control systems are all considered for optimization.

Project Selection

1. Optimization of gas separation schemes for the ENSOL process

2. Product and process selection: Aspects of expert systems in design

3. Formulation of the large-scale NLP problem for optimization of reactor-separator processes

4. Process intensification: fluid bed heat transfer

5. Modern project investment appraisal: return to simplicity

6. Total process plant analysis by process integration

7. Synthesis of distillation sequences: a comparison of enumerative and AI methods

8. Expert systems for production separator design

9. Optimization of acid gas emission control strategies in the UK power generation industry

Process Design

10. Optimal cost design of a cyclohexanol plant

11. Optimization of batch plant design

12. Hazards assessment at initial layout stage

13. Optimization and safety

14. Dynamic model based optimization in the design of a batch process involving simultaneous reaction and distillation

Detailed Design

15. Integrated controlled random search: application to a wastewater treatment plant model

16. Explosion venting of weakly flammable mixtures: implications for existing plant modifications

17. An optimal overdesign strategy for fouling

18. Re-vamp of high pressure distillation columns using random packings

Plant Operation

Part I: Case Studies

19. Condition based maintenance - the optimum route to enhanced plant availability

20. Statistical process control in the plantations industry

21. Maximizing waste utilization in palm oil mills

22. Optimization of phosphate grinding

Part II

23. Computer control of an olefine plant using an on-line optimizer

24. On-line optimization of fluidized catalytic crackers

25. Strategies for desalination optimization

26. Optimal unit selection in a combined heat and power station

27. Process optimization - design and operation: a practical experience

Index