Distributed optimization of large-scale chemical / petrochemical plant operations.

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The chemical / petrochemical industries operate processing plants that are very large-scale, highly integrated and complex systems. The performance objectives for such plants are to maximize operating efficiency, while ensuring a minimal environmental impact. Current process control and optimization approaches cannot meet the demands for increasingly efficient operations. We are nearing a technological breakpoint, where the current process automation paradigm will not be able to meet the performance demands imposed by society. Thus a key frontier in process systems engineering is the creation of techniques and tools that will provide the basis for the creation of the next generation of process automation systems. More precisely, new approaches are required for process control and optimization for the very large-scale systems that are encountered in the chemical / petrochemical industries (e.g., time-varying, tightly integrated, nonlinear and so forth). The long-term objective of our research program has been, and continues to be, the creation of methods and tools for optimizing process operations. In the proposed research program, we will focus on distributed approaches to performance optimization in large-scale process systems. The underpinning assumption in existing work is that the component control / optimization subsystems are perfectly synchronized, which limits the applicability of available research results. Asynchronicity is the rule for"real-world" process control and optimization applications. The focus of the proposed research program will be in the creation of a theoretical framework and process systems engineering techniques for coordination-based, distributed optimization systems in the face of the asynchronicity that is typically faced in chemical / petrochemical plants. The expected contributions arising from the proposed program represent an essential step in realizing the potential for distributed, coordination-based process control and optimization systems.