Control of Ideal Heat Integrated Distillation Columns

The operation of an ideal heat integrated distillation column(HlDiC) is addressed.Five kinds of control configurations,i.e.single-loop control,multi-loop control,multivariable in-ternal model control(IMC),modified multivariable internal model control(MIMC) and nonlinearprocess model-based control(NPMC),are designed and applied to the process.Simulation resultsdemonstrate that all of the above control configurations are valid for product quality control.NPMCcontrol configuration is found to be the best one among all the alternatives.It can readily realizesetpoint transitions and conduct effectively against external disturbances.MIMC control configur-ation ranks second in the row for its regulatory responses to feed composition disturbances withrelatively extended setting time.Next comes from the multi-loop control configuration,which ismore or less handicapped by its greater deviations and overshootings.IMC control configuration cannot compete with the multi-loop control configuration because it is extre