Computers & Chemical Engineering, Vol.20, No.S, 435-441, 1996
Design of Standardized, Modular, Chemical Processes
Process system manufacturers face a dilemma in designing new products. There are economic trade-offs between the two extremes of providing a customized design for each application, and providing only a few standardized designs. To solve this problem, we must have knowledge of process design and the customers. We are integrating superstructure optimization through MINLPs for the optimal design with knowledge of the distribution of the customers in a "requirement" space. A master mathematical program is being developed to link together this information to solve the overall question of how to most economically provide standardized designs for the customers. An example is presented with our formulation, along with the results of an enumerative solution.
Keywords:OPTIMIZATION