A robust-based approach for integration of design and control (Sanchez-Sanchez & Ricardez-Sandoval, AIChE J., 2013)
A ternary distillation unit was optimally designed using a robust-based methodology developed in our group (figure a). The plots shown in panel b below indicate that the process design obtained from the implementation of our methodology is economically attractive and remains dynamically feasible in the presence of the worst-case scenario.
Simultaneous design, scheduling and control (Patil et al., AIChE J., 2015)
In this research, a methodology that performs the simultaneous design, scheduling and control of multiproduct plants under uncertainty was developed. This type of plants require smooth transitions between different operating points to achieve the production of multiple high quality products (figure a). The results show that the methodology proposed in this work is able to specify optimal design parameters, transitions between different operating conditions and controller parameters that minimize the process economics in the presence of critical realizations in the disturbances, and model parameter uncertainty (figure b).