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Economic Plantwide Control:

Automated Controlled Variable Selection for a
Reactor-Separator-Recycle Process
Vladimiros Minasidis, Johannes Jschke and
Sigurd Skogestad
Department of Chemical Engineering,
Trondheim, Norway

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Outline
Introduction
Economic Plantwide Control
Case study - RSR process
Conclusions and future work

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Introduction
Most industrial process control strategies are not
designed to optimally handle frequent market
conditions changes.

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Introduction
Most industrial process control strategies are not
designed to optimally handle frequent market
conditions changes.
Integration between process optimization and control
is needed to reduce the production cost

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Introduction
Industry adapts simple control strategies that are
easily understood by the operators and engineers.

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Introduction
Industry adapts simple control strategies that are
easily understood by the operators and engineers.
Essential characteristics:
1. It has to be fairly simple
2. It has to be able to keep the process operation close-to-optimal
while satisfying the operational constraints
3. It has to be easily designed

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Introduction
Industry adapts simple control strategies that are
easily understood by the operators and engineers.
Essential characteristics:
1. It has to be fairly simple
2. It has to be able to keep the process operation close-to-optimal
while satisfying the operational constraints
3. It has to be easily designed.
Economic plantwide control can be used to design
control structures that satisfy the first two
characteristics

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Economic Plantwide Control

Formulate the economic operation as a mathematical
optimization problem and then design a control structure
that results in a close-to-optimal operation while satisfying
the stability and robustness requirements.

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Economic Plantwide Control

Formulate the economic operation as a mathematical
optimization problem and then design a control structure that
results in a close-to-optimal operation while satisfying the
stability and robustness requirements.

Top-down part:
Aims to find an optimal control structure
based on plant steady state economics

Bottom-up part:
Aims to find a simple and robust
regulatory control

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Economic Plantwide Control

Steps from top-down part of plantwide control design
procedure:
1. Define the operational objectives (economics) and
constraints.

Details in [Skogestad, 2012]

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Economic Plantwide Control

Steps from top-down part of plantwide control design
procedure:
1. Define the operational objectives (economics) and
constraints.
2. Determine the steady state optimal operation:
a) Identify the steady-state DOFs
b) Identify the important disturbances and their expected
range
c) Identify the expected active constrains regions

Details in [Skogestad, 2012]

V. Minasidis et al, Automated Controlled Variable Selection for a Reactor-Separator-Recycle Process
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Economic Plantwide Control

Steps from top-down part of plantwide control design
procedure:
1. Define the operational objectives (economics) and
constraints.
2. Determine the steady state optimal operation:
a) Identify the steady-state DOFs
b) Identify the important disturbances and their expected
range
c) Identify the expected active constrains regions
3. Select primary (economic) controlled variables:
a) Control the active constraints
b) Select self-optimizing CVs
Details in [Skogestad, 2012]
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PC

Process description
PI
LC
CSTR MD
P
XD
1st order kinetics L
R D
A B
A 2C (undesired)
F0
XF

S
MR
F
FC V
TI FI
TR
MB

LC XB
B

Details can be found in Jacobsen et. al, [2011]

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PC

Process description
PI
LC
CSTR MD
P
XD
1st order kinetics L
R D
A B
A 2C (undesired)
F0
XF

Column
S
30 stages MR
F
LV - configuration FC V
TI FI
TR
Assumptions: MB
Constant relative volatilities
Constant molar overflows
Constant pressure LC
B
XB

Details can be found in Jacobsen et. al, [2011]

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Economic Plantwide Control

Step 1:
Define the operational objectives (economics) and
constraints.

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PC

Step 1:
PI
LC

Cost function: steam cost

P
MD
XD
J pF F0 pV V pP P pB B R D L

cost feed value products

F0
XF

S
MR
F
FC V
TI FI
TR
MB

LC XB
B

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PC

Step 1:
PI
LC

Cost function: steam cost

P
MD
XD
J pF F0 pV V pP P pB B R D L

cost feed value products

F0
[ pF , pV , pP , pB ] [1, 0.01, 0.5, 2] XF

prices in $/kmol
S
MR
F
FC V
TI FI
TR
MB

LC XB
B

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PC

Step 1:
PI
LC

Cost function: steam cost

P
MD
XD
J pF F0 pV V pP P pB B R D L

cost feed value products

F0
[ pF , pV , pP , pB ] [1, 0.01, 0.5, 2] XF

prices in $/kmol
S
MR
F
FC V
TI FI
TR
Operational constraints*: MB
xB , B 0.9 TR 390 K
M R 11000 mol V 30 mol/s LC XB
B
R 0 mol/s

*values are based on the work of Jacobsen et. al, [2011]

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Economic Plantwide Control

Step 2:
Determine the steady state optimal operation:
a) Identify the steady-state DOFs
b) Identify the important disturbances and their expected
range
c) Identify the expected active constrains regions

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PC

Step 2a:
PI
LC

Degrees of freedom: P
MD
XD

Steady state degrees of freedom: D L

R
uSS [ L,V , F , R, S ]
F0
XF

S
MR
F
FC V
TI FI
TR
MB

LC XB
B

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PC

Step 2b:
PI
LC

Degrees of freedom: P
MD
XD

Steady state degrees of freedom: D L

R
uSS [ L,V , F , R, S ]
F0
XF

Disturbances
S
MR
Main disturbances: F
FC V
Feed flow TR
TI FI

Energy price
MB
d [ F0 , pV ]
Expected disturbance range 30% LC XB
B

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Step 2c:
Always active:
xB , B , TR , M R
Remaining
active constraints regions:
(I ) R
(II )
(III ) V
(IV ) V , R
(V ) Infeasible Operational constraints:

Maximum number of xB , B 0.9 TR 390 K

active constraint regions M R 11000 mol V 30 mol/s
ncon R 0 mol/s
2
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Step 2c:
Always active:
xB , B , TR , M R
Remaining
active constraints regions:
(I ) R
(II )
(III ) V
(IV ) V , R
(V ) Infeasible Operational constraints:
xB , B 0.9 TR 390 K
Operating point M R 11000 mol V 30 mol/s
R 0 mol/s

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Economic Plantwide Control

Step 3:
Select primary (economic) controlled variables:
a) Control the active constraints
b) Select the self-optimizing variables

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PC

Step 3a:
PI
LC

An optimal operational point: P

MD
XD

F0,nom 0.8 [kmol/s] R D L

pV ,nom 0.06 [$/kmol]

F0 LC
XF
Active constraints:
xB , B , TR , M R , R S
MR
F
FC V
TI
Steady-state DOFs: TC
FI CC

TR
uSS [ L, V , F , R, S ] MB

Active constraints pairings (input, output): LC

B
XB

(V , xB , B ) ( S , TR ) ( F , M R ) ( R, Closedvalve)

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Economic Plantwide Control

Step 3:
Select primary (economic) controlled variables:
a) Control the active constraints
b) Select the self-optimizing variables

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Self-optimizing CVs
Linearized model
y G y u Gdy d
c HG y u HGdy d

Setpoint control
c cS H y 0
Feedback implementation of optimal
operation with separate layers for
optimization (RTO) and control

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PC

Available measurements
PI
LC

MD
P
Candidate measurements (y): XD

D L
R
Compositions (noise 0.01):
xB , D , xB , B , xB , F
F0 LC
XF
Input flows (noise 10%):
S
L,V , D, B, F , F0 , R, P MR
F
Reactor level (noise 100 mol): TI
FC
FI
V
CC

MR TC
TR
MB
Column and reactor temperatures (noise 1 K):
T1 , T5 , T9 , T13 , T17 , T21 , T25 , T30 , TR LC XB
B

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Self-optimizing CVs selection

Combination of measurements based on Nullspace
method [Alstad et. Al, 2009]
Analytical solution using all the measurements based
on the Exact Local method [Halvorsen, 2003]
Individual or combination of measurements based on
Branch&Bound method [Kariwala et. al, 2008]
Individual or combination of measurements with
structural constraints based on MIQP formulation
[Yelchuru et. al, 2011]

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Self optimizing CVs selection

Remaining DOFs for Self-optimizing control:
uSS [ L]
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Self optimizing CVs selection

Remaining DOFs for Self-optimizing control:
uSS [ L]

Nullspace method [Alstad et. al, 2009]

H N (F T )
where N - nullspace
F - optimal sensitivity to disturbances

y opt
Need to estimate : F
d

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Self optimizing CVs selection

Remaining DOFs for Self-optimizing control:
uSS [ L]

Select the self-optimizing CV for L based on the

analytical solution [Yelchuru et al, 2011]:

H T (YY T )1 G y Q Scaled disturbances

where Y [ FWd Wn ] and noise
Q - any non singular matrix of n n d Wd d '
c c
n y Wn y n y
y opt y
Need to estimate : F and G y
d u

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Performance comparisson

Relative loss
J (u, d ) J opt (d )
LRel
J opt (d )

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Conclusions
Automated economic CVs selection could be
considered a successful first step for automating the
entire procedure
Integration of Economic Plantwide Control design
procedure in to popular process simulators could
potentially improve the production costs on a global
scale

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Future Work
Handling active constraint changes
Finding a single control structure over multiple active
constraints regions with an acceptable loss
Using the information from the active constraint maps
to estimate G y , Gdy , J uu

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Future Work
Handling active constraint changes
Finding a single control structure over multiple active
constraints regions with an acceptable loss
Using the information from the active constraint maps
to estimate G y , Gdy , J uu

Thank you !

V. Minasidis et al, Automated Controlled Variable Selection for a Reactor-Separator-Recycle Process