Simultaneous Cyclic Scheduling and Control of Tubular Reactors: Parallel Production Lines

In this work we propose a simultaneous scheduling and control optimization formulation to address both optimal steady-state production and dynamic product transitions in multiproduct tubular reactors working in several parallel production lines. Because the problem involves integer and continuous variables and the dynamic behavior of the underlying system the resulting optimization problem is cast as a Mixed-Integer Dynamic Optimization (MIDO) problem. Moreover, because spatial and temporal variations are considered when modeling the addressed systems, the dynamic systems give rise to a system of one-dimensional partial differential equations. For solving the MIDO problems we transform them into a mixed-integer nonlinear programs (MINLP). We use the method of lines for spatial discretization, whereas orthogonal collocation on finite elements was used for temporal discretization. The proposed simultaneous scheduling and control formulation is tested using three multiproduct continuous tubular reactors featuring complex nonlinear behavior.