PROCESS INTEGRATION GROUP

Telemark Institute of Technology, Porsgrunn

Head: Professor Truls Gundersen

ANNUAL REPORT 1995

In its second year, the group has grown in size and activity. Three Ph.D. students are now assigned to the group, two started in 1994 and one started in 1995. The most important result for the group in 1995 was the election as Operating Agent for the International Energy Agency (IEA) in their Implementing Agreement on Process Integration in competition with the engineering and contracting company M.W.Kellogg of Houston. Telemark Institute of Technology is responsible for Annex I on Survey and Strategy which is supported by 6 countries.

Personnel

The group for Process Integration consists at present of:

• Professor Truls Gundersen, Head
• Ph.D. student Bjørn Glemmestad (started June 1994)
• Ph.D. student Abdolreza Hashemi-Ahmady (started August 1994)
• Ph.D. student Tom Ole Øvrum (started September 1995)

During 1995, four diploma students (M.Sc.) were engaged in problems related to Process Integration.

Ph.D. Research

Bjørn Glemmestad (financed by the Computer Assisted Chemical Engineering Programme at the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology) is conducting research in the area of controllability of integrated processes with primary focus on heat exchanger networks. The research includes optimal operation and control (by switching between control actions) of a given heat exchanger network with fixed bypasses. One of the important insights is that network structure is crucial for the control of the network. The ultimate goal is to include operability and controllability considerations at the design stage.

Abdolreza Hashemi-Ahmady (financed by a scholarship from Telemark Institute of Technology) is conducting research in the area of using modern optimization techniques based on Mathematical Programming in Process Integration. Current research addresses the combinatorial and non-convexity (local optima) problems of many of these optimization models, such as heat exchanger network synthesis problems. Future research will look at heat integrated energy driven separation processes.

Tom Ole Øvrum (financed by the Nordic Energy Research Programme on Process Integration) is conducting research in the area of simultaneous energy and water management of integrated processes. Øvrum is currently spending most of his time on the compulsory courses. We are actively looking for an industrial partner for this project, possibly in the pulp and paper or the food and beverage industry.

Publications

• T. Gundersen, Use of Mathematical Programming in Heat Exchanger Network Synthesis and the Extended Vertical MILP Model, Department of Chemical Engineering, Danish Technical University (DTU), June 1995.
• T. Gundersen, Classification and Evaluation of Process Integration Methods, Nordic Annual Meeting on Process Integration, Copenhagen, Denmark, 8 November 1995.
• Olof Eriksson, Consistent Energy Balances for Life Cycle Analysis in the Process Industry, M.Sc. thesis (in Norwegian), Telemark Institute of Technology, Porsgrunn, June 1995.
• Tom Ole Øvrum, A Study of Mass Transfer Processes as an Analogy to Heat Transfer Processes using Pinch Technology, M.Sc. thesis (in Norwegian), Telemark Institute of Technology, Porsgrunn, June 1995.
• Kurt Ove Lodgaard, Costs for Starting up and Shutting down Thermal Power Production Systems, M.Sc. thesis (in Norwegian), Telemark Institute of Technology, Porsgrunn, June 1995.
• Steinar Duvold, Use of Mathematical Programming for Design of Heat Exchanger Networks, M.Sc. thesis (in Norwegian), Telemark Institute of Technology, Porsgrunn, June 1995.

Two papers were finished in 1995 and will be presented at ESCAPE-6, Rhodes, May 1996:

• T. Gundersen, S. Duvold and A. Hashemi-Ahmady, An Extended Vertical MILP Model for Heat Exchanger Network Synthesis.
• B. Glemmestad, K. W. Mathisen and Truls Gundersen, Optimal Operation of Heat Exchanger Networks based on Structural Information.