OPTIMAL CONTROL OF DISPERSIVE TUBULAR CHEMICAL REACTORS: PART I

摘要

This paper, the first of a series of two, deals with the determination of optimal steady-state jacket fluid temperature profiles for dispersive tubular chemical reactors, ranging from plug flow to perfectly mixed reactors. According to Pontryagin's minimum principle, the optimal control is of the bang-bang type for the proposed terminal cost criterion. The bang-bang switching position is numerically optimised, by means of a weighted shooting-type procedure for the determination of the reactor profiles, ensuring the Danckwerts boundary conditions are satisfied. Following this procedure the impact of dispersion on the optimised profiles is illustrated. In the second paper, the performance of the obtained optimal control laws will be compared with that of practically more feasible controls. Furthermore, the transient behaviour will be assessed.