Aims

Introduction to simulation techniques, to flowsheeting and to process optimisation.

Main themes

1) Basic concepts
General structure and operating mode of a process simulation software. Flowsheeting methods. Evaluation and selection of thermodynamic, kinetic and unit operation models.
2) Mathematical tools
Numerical methods of integration of partial differential equations used in chemical engineering. Finite difference methods, Weighted residuals methods (orthogonal collocation).
3) Numerical simulation
Solution of a simulation flowsheet. Operation principles of a software (ASPEN). Generation of thermodynamic properties, use of a software for the design of equipments and the parameter sensitivity study. Simulation of the most important unit operations.
4) Optimisation
Application of optimisation methods to typical processes like heat exchangers, reactor cascade, distillation columns,…
Applied methods : nonlinear optimisation with constraints (e.g. generalised reduced gradient, sequential quadratic programming, Lagrange multipliers,…)

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