Introduction

The strong point center on process systems engineering (PROST) was established in June of 1994. It was awarded by NTNU and SINTEF in recognition of the strong international standing of the group. The center receives one million NOK annually for 5 years from NTNU and SINTEF. PROST originally consisted of four professors at the Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU, and Department of Chemical Engineering at SINTEF Applied Chemistry. In August 1995, PROST was expanded to include the process control activities of Electrical Engineering at NTNU and at SINTEF Automatic Control. The main research areas are:

• Process modelling, simulation and optimization, both stationary and dynamic
• Process control
• Process synthesis
• Process operations

Organisation

About 50 persons are associated with PROST. The member groups of PROST are:

• Process Control Group, Dep. of Chemical Engineering, NTNU, Professor Sigurd Skogestad, (head of PROST).
• Process Modelling and Simulation Group, Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU, Professor Terje Hertzberg.
• Process Synthesis and Optimization Group, Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU, Professor Kristian Lien.
• Process Systems Engineering Group, SINTEF Chemical Engineering. Research Manager Arne Grislingås
• Process Integration Group, Telemark Institute of Technology, Professor Truls Gundersen
• Process Control Group, Department of Engineering Cybernetics, NTNU, Professor Bjarne A. Foss
• Process Control Group, SINTEF Automatic Control, Research Manager Peter Singstad

Activities

A short summary of the activities is given below. In addition, reports from the groups are attached.

Publications

27 international journal papers and 32 conference papers were published by researchers, professors, and students at the strong point center in 1995.

Students

PROST employed a total of 27 Ph.D. students at the end of 1995, and 4 finished their Ph.Ds during the year. In total, 25 diploma students were associated with the center in 1995.

SINTEF projects

The SINTEF groups worked on many projects in 1995. Their main customers were Statoil, Norsk Hydro, Permea, Borealis, Simrad, Kværner and Daimler Bentz.

External activities

One of our main goals has been to pass on information about our activities and to establish better communications with industry and other users of our research.

PROST's annual scientific meeting was held on the 4 April 1995, where the latest research results were presented. Further, co-operation between the industry and PROST was discussed.

PROST's industrial seminar on dynamic process simulation was held on 1 November 1995. Besides Professor Arthur Westerberg from Carnegie-Mellon University, a significant international figure within process systems engineering, the seminar was mainly composed of industrial speakers from Hydro, Statoil, Kværner, Aker, Siemens, Norcontrol and Fantoft Process. The main issue was how dynamic simulators could be used in industry with favourable results. There were 32 external participants, and 33 came from NTNU/SINTEF.

27 - 29 May 1997 PROST will organise the combined international conference «Process Systems Engineering» and «European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering» (PSESCAPE - 97), with Kristian Lien as general chairman and Sigurd Skogestad as the program committee chairman. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 10 June 1996.