DESIGN OF RESILIENT CONTROLLABLE CHEMICAL PROCESSES - AN AUTOTHERMAL REACTOR CASE-STUDY

A technique for the analysis of state-space linear systems is applied to the problem of selection of resilient chemical process designs. Structural Dominance Analysis affords the evaluation of many process design and control configurations and assessment of the effects of potential manipulated variables and disturbances. After a brief presentation of the analysis method, a complex multibed tubular autothermal reactor system is examined. Resilient process configurations, ease of control, and effects of various inputs on reactor state variables and outputs are considered, and effective control configurations are selected