Multiple-objective decision analysis applied to chemical engineering

摘要

Chemical engineers are now being faced with new decisions involving multiple (and often conflicting) objectives as a result of increases in the scale and complexity of chemical plants and a re-evaluation of their performance criteria. Reliability and environmental impacts are now considered to be as important as economic efficiency, and this must be taken into account in process design, production planning and control.\ud\udThis paper describes methods for solving these multiple-objective optimization problems and gives an overview of the existing software. Selected applications of multiple-objective analysis are discussed—these include the design of a twin-screw extruder, the control of a film-hardening process and a production planning problem.