Dynamics and nonlinear control of integrated process systems (Q2904654)

The book under review consists of four parts and addresses the problem of dynamics and nonlinear control of process systems under the quite new and major demand for integrated processes featuring material recycles and/or energy recovery. The overall approach relies on the singular/regular perturbation theory and systems with multiple-time-scale dynamics, Part I introducing this framework for further use within the subsequent two parts. The outcome of the book is a new paradigm for systematic synthesizing of the hierarchical nonlinear controller used for integrated process systems with several time scales of the type encountered in chemical and energy industries. In order to use the singular perturbation theory, for the two fields of applications and their specific problems there are defined the ``process-level dimensionless numbers'' whose inverses account for the small parameters. The main content of the book is divided into two parts: Part II addresses the class of process systems with material-balance dynamics and Part III the class of process systems with energy integration. Each chapter considers a representative problem for the dynamics and nonlinear controller synthesis within the proposed framework. First, it is deduced and analyzed the model of the process and then there are derived the nonstiff models of reduced-order for the dynamics of the process in each time scale. This allows to introduce and to apply a composite control, i.e. to use separate coordinated controllers, each of them addressing one type of system dynamics. Several examples and case studies are used in order to validate the proposed method.NEWLINENEWLINEPart II begins with Chapter 3, ``Process systems with significant material recycling'', where the hierarchical control structure ensures a distributed control for process units in the fast-time scale and a supervisory control for the overall process in the slow-time scale. The method is exemplified for a control problem of a reactor-distillation-recycle process. Chapter 4 introduces another prototype control problem, the ``process systems with purge streams'' which involves the presence of the small quantities of impurities. Part II ends with Chapter 5 which proposes a framework for modeling and nonlinear model reduction for those process systems characterized by significant large recycle streams and small purge stream(s). Part III consists of two chapters, ``Process systems with energy recycling'' and ``Process systems with energy throughput''. It is showed that for processes of the energy industry the energy-balance dynamics is much faster than the material-balance dynamics, fact which has different control implications. The proposed case studies are: ``control of a reactor-FEHE process'', ``dynamics of high-purity distillation columns'' and ``control of a rector with and external heat exchanger''. Part IV, ``Appendices'' comprises definitions, basics of ``Systems with multiple-time-scale dynamics'' and Matlab code underlings computational aspects. The book is dense, excellently written and useful to graduate students and researchers interested in dynamics and control.