| Author's Name: |
S.R.Dantas, R.M.L.Oliveira, W.B.Ramos, G.W. Farias Neto & R. P. Brito |
| Subject Area: |
Science and Engineering |
| Subject |
Chemical Engineering |
| Section |
Research Paper |
Keyword:
Effect of pressure, dynamics and control, sidestream distillation columns.
Abstract
Distillation column control is widely explored by literature due to its complexity and importance in chemical and petrochemical industries. In this process, pressure represents one of the most important variables to be controlled, however, pressure effect on the dynamics and control of distillation columns has not been carefully studied. Furthermore, most researches on distillation column control is limited to columns with two withdrawals (top and bottom), but in many cases, distillation columns have sidestreams once their application can provide significant reduction in operating and capital costs. This paper investigates the effect of pressure on the dynamics of an industrial sidestream distillation column and compares the performance of its current pressure control configuration with two other configurations. The results showed that the pressure control currently used in the studied column is not the most effective and other control configurations have a better performance.