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FRINAT-Matematikk og naturvitenskap

Near-optimal operation of chemical processes using feedback

Awarded: NOK 3.7 mill.

This project is related to a larger activity in plantwide control performed in group of Professor Sigurd Skogestad at NTNU. Plantwide control deals primarily with the structural issues of the control system, such as what to measure and control, which inpu ts to use, and how to pair these sets of variables. This is widely recognized as the most important issue for chemical process control (Seborg, Edgar and Mellichamp, 2004}, yet its theoretical basis remains quite weak, especially when compared with the la rge amount of work on optimization and controlled desigm (with the structure fixed). We have also have close cooperation with other groups in the world, including Professor Morten Hovd at Engineering Cybernetics at NTNU, Professor Bosgra and Grievink at TU Delft, Professor Pistikopoulos at Imperial College in London, Professor Morarti at ETH and Professor Marquardt at RWTH Achen. In particular, there will be close interactions through the new EU-funded Marie Curie research training network, called PROMA TCH (2005-2008), which involves the groups at NTNU, Delft, Eindhoven, Aachen and Imperial College. The research challenges proposed for the Ph.D. projects include the following: 1. Effective offline generation and modeling of optimal solutions. 2. Model reduction of soution. 3. Vayring setpoints. 4. Extensions of linear methods for selecting controlled variables. 5. Extensions of optimization methid for selecting controlled variables. 6. Dynamic self-optimizing control. 7. Case studies.

Funding scheme:

FRINAT-Matematikk og naturvitenskap