Document Type
Conference Item
Publication Date
6-1-2015
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to extend the approach that was introduced by Hillestad (2010) to handle chemical reactor design problem with multiple stages. Specifically, multi-objective optimization method will be used to generate Pareto optimal solutions that characterize the non-inferior solutions set for the problem. Following the identification of path-dependent design variables, several (possibly conflicting) design objectives will be selected and solutions of the corresponding problem will be generated from multi-objective optimization algorithm. This approach is investigated for two industrially important reactor systems: ethylene oxide and phthalic anhydride synthesis. By using reference-point based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (R-NSGA-II), Pareto-optimal solutions are successfully generated within the region of user-specified reference points, thus facilitating in the selection of final optimal designs. Apart from the extensive selection of optimal candidate reactor designs, this approach also enables further insights to be obtained regarding the optimal arrangement of the path-dependent design variables along the reactor length.
Keywords
Systematic staging, chemical reactor design, multi-objective optimization, R-NSGA-II, ethylene oxide, phthalic anhydride.
Divisions
fac_eng
Event Title
12th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering and 25th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering
Event Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Event Dates
31 May–4 June 2015
Event Type
conference