Simultaneous Design and Scheduling of Multiple Effect Evaporation Systems

H. HELUANE; A. BLANCO; M. HERNÁNDEZ; A. BANDONI

Cambridge, MA, USA

Congreso; Foundations of Computer Aided Process Operation, FOCAPO 2008; 2008

Evaporation is a key operation in many industries and it is known to be one of the major energy consumers within the processes. During the operation, solid deposits on the heat exchange surfaces (fouling) with the consequent increase in heat transfer resistance. Therefore, periodic shutdowns of the trains of evaporators are required for the cleaning of the units in order to ecover acceptable performance. In this contribution the simultaneous design and scheduling problem of a multiple effect evaporator system is addressed. The problem is formulated to optimize downstream product quality while processing as much as raw material as available upstream. A sugar cane industry evaporation system is presented as a case study