0263 8762/99/$10.00+0.

00

Institution of Chemical Engineers

Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999

INTERACTION BETWEEN DESIGN AND CONTROL

OF A HEAT-INTEGRATED DISTILLATION SYSTEM
WITH PREFRACTIONATOR
C. S. BILDEA and A. C. DIMIAN
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

his paper analyses the relationship between the design and control of a heat-integrated
distillation set-up consisting of a prefractionator and a side stream main column. The
separation of a pentane-hexane-heptane mixture with moderate purity requirements
is considered. Both forward and reverse heat-integration schemes are investigated. Different
designs are possible, depending on the light/heavy split in the prefractionator and the heatintegration scheme. They are similar with respect to energy consumption, but very different
with respect to dynamic behaviour. The differences are studied using frequency-dependent
controllability analysis, as well as carrying out closed-loop simulation, in the presence of
large feed composition disturbances. Thus, it is found that the forward heat-integration is
much easier to control, using only temperature measurements. The low-cost design with a
small prefractionator has the best closed-loop performance. The reverse heat-integration can
be controlled only if a composition analyser of the side stream is available; a sharp light/heavy
split in the prefractionator gives better disturbance rejection. The superior dynamic behaviour
of the forward heat-integration scheme was con rmed by the study of a high purity separation
of the benzene-toluene-xylene mixture.

Keywords: integrated
controllability analysis

design

and

control;

ternary

separation;

heat-integration;

In the previous studies 9 2 15 , heuristic rules (endorsed by

industrial experience) were applied to obtain an approximate design, which was later re ned by rigorous methods.
Afterwards, the controllability analysis was performed.
For conventiona l distillation columns, there are few
design decisions to be taken and the design is almost established once the product purity is speci ed. However, more
decisions (for which no guidelines are available) are involved in the design of complex con gurations. They will
affect the controllability properties, besides the energy
consumption, total annual cost or other economic index.
This work investigates the interaction between design
and control of the heat integrated prefractionator/sidestream column con guration for ternary separation. For
this arrangement, an important design decision refers to
the split between the light and heavy components to be
performed in the prefractionator. According to this, several
designs are possible. They are presented and discussed
for both the forward and reverse heat-integration arrangements. Multi-input multi-output (MIMO) controllability
analysis is performed based on linear models. For the particular mixture considered in this work and forward heatintegration, the design with a small prefractionator performs
better. It has excellent controllability properties and good
composition control can be obtained using only temperature
measurements. The reverse heat-integrated alternative is
more interactive. In this case, good control can be achieved
only if at least one composition analyser is available.
Controllability is improved if a sharp split between the light

INTRODUCTION
The direct and indirect sequences are well-known conventional con gurations for separation of ternary mixtures by
distillation. Due to the higher cost of energy during the last
decade, there is an increased interest in alternative methods.
They include heat integration 1 2 2 , thermal coupling 3 2 6 , and
complex con gurations 72 8 . These alternatives have, for
some ranges of feed composition, lower energy consumption than the conventiona l con gurations. As an example 8 ,
for a 25/50/25 benzene-toluene-xyle ne mixture, the prefractionator/side-stream column (Figure 1) with reverse heat
integration and low operating pressure consumed 45% less
energy than the direct sequence 8 .
The dynam ics and control of these systems is as
important as energy saving 92 15 . Ding and Luyben 15 studied
the controllability of the prefractionator/side stream column
with reverse heat integration. The control structure used
concentration measurements and single-input single-outpu t
(SISO) loops, including split-range control. For the low
purity separation, the system was found controllable.
For the high-purity case, the system could handle only
small disturbances. However, they did not study the
controllability of the forward heat-integration arrangement. Moreover, the relationships between the design and
controllability properties were not analysed.
The fact that the design of a process determines its
controllability is well recognized 16 . However, no applications to complex distillation con gurations are reported.
597

598

BILDEA and DIMIAN

and heavy components is performed in the prefractionator.

Finally, the performance of the proposed control structures
is evaluated by dynam ic simulation.
Throughout this work, A, B and C will denote the light,
intermediate and heavy components, respectively. For the
particular separation investigated, they are pentane, hexane
and heptane, respectively.

Table 1. Possible speci cations for the A/C split in the prefractionator. The

DESIGN OF THE PREFRACTIONATOR/SIDE

STREAM COLUMN CONFIGURATION
The prefractionator/side stream column con guration
is presented in Figure 1. Typically, the design speci cations
are expressed as the purity of the product streams. Design
decisions refer to the range of operating pressures and
the quality of the separation to be performed in the
prefractionator.
For each column, a pressure pro le is assumed, which is
related to the heat-integration scheme. For forward heatintegration, heat transfer is possible when the distillate of
the prefractionator is hotter than the bottom of the second
column. This can be achieved if the pressure in the prefractionator is high enough. If reverse heat-integration is
of interest, the second column is the one to be operated at
high pressure. It is noted that the pressure pro le depends on
the design of the columns; hence, several design iterations
may be necessary.
To design the prefractionator, the fractional recoveries
of the light and heavy components, FAB zAB,A /FABC,A zABC ,A and
FBC zBC,C /FABC zABC,C , respectively are speci ed (the rst
and second subscripts denote the stream and component,
respectively). A binary A/C separation is considered and
the Underwood-Fenske method used to nd the minimum
re ux and minimum number of trays. Then the re ux ratio
and the number of trays are chosen (for example 1 .23 Rmin
and 23 Nmin ). This gives an approxim ate design, due to the
presence of the intermediate component. Consequently, a
rigorous method is used to adjust the product and re ux
ow rates until the desired A/C separation is achieved. At
the same time, the top and bottom concentration of the
intermediate component is obtained.
The main column may be treated as two pseudoconventiona l sections. The mass balance equations give
the ow rates of the product streams. The controlling feed
(the one requiring the largest re ux 17 ) is found and the re ux
ratio set accordingly. Then a short-cut method is used to nd
an approximate design. Finally, a rigorous method is used
to re ne the number of trays, feed and side stream locations.
Depending on the speci ed recoveries for the light and

Bottom (kmol h2 1 )
A
C

Figure 1. Prefractionato r/side stream column con guration for ternary

separation.

feed consists of 150 kmol h2 1 equimolar ABC mixture. For product purity
A: 99%; B: 98%; C: 99%, the maximum ow rate of C in distillate and A in
bottom is 0.5 kmol h2 1 .

Distillate (kmol h
A
C

2 1)

Design I

Design II

Design III

Design IV

49.975
0.025

49.525
0.475

49.525
0.025

49.975
0.475

0.025
49.975

0.475
49.525

0.475
49.975

0.025
49.525

heavy components in the prefractionator, different designs

are arrived at. Consider a 150 kmol/h equimolar ABC feed.
Let the desired purity of the A, B and C products be 0.99,
0.98 and 0.99, respectively. Assume that the B product
should contain equal amounts of A and C, i.e. 0.5 kmol/hr.
It is noted that the entire A (or C) that leaves the
prefractionator with the bottom (or top) stream will end in
the side stream of the main column. Consequently, the
maximum amount of A (or C) in the prefractionator bottom
(top) is 0 .5 kmol h2 1 .
To design the prefractionator, several speci cations
are possible. Table 1 displays four design alternatives.
In the rst one, a sharp A/C separation is performed in
the prefractionator. Alternatively (Design II), the quantities
of light in bottom s and heavy in distillate are allowed to
be close to their maximum allowed values, and a sharp
A/B and B/C split is required in the main column. Other
options investigated are: (III) high recovery of the heavy
component, low recovery of the light component and (IV)
low recovery of the heavy component, high recovery of
the light component.
The alternatives have different operating parameters
(re ux, condenser and reboiler duty, etc.) and columns
size (number of trays, diameter). In addition, different
controllability properties are expected.

HEAT INTEGRATION CONSIDERATIONS

The forward heat integration is now considered. The
same considerations apply to the reverse heat-integration.
Usually, the heat-integration is attempted by combining
in one heat exchanger the condenser of the rst column and
the reboiler of the second column. In most of the cases, it is
found that the duties do not match. The rst solution is to
install auxiliary equipment. If there is a heat surplus
(Qc1 > Qw2 ), a condenser is added to the rst column. If there
is a heat de ciency (Qc 1 < Qw2 ), a reboiler is added to the
second column. In both cases, the capital cost increases
because of the additional equipm ent, but one variable (duty)
is preserved to be manipulated in the control structure.
An alternative solution is to change the columns design
to match the duties. For heat surplus, we may increase the
second column re ux and decrease the number of trays. This
requires higher reboiler duty. Because the additional duty
is obtained by heat integration, there is no penalty in terms
of energy consumption. Note that the option of decreasing
Qc1 may not work due to the minimum-re ux constraint. If
there is a heat de ciency, Qc1 may be modi ed by increasing the re ux in the rst column. The number of trays is
Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999

INTERACTION BETWEEN DESIGN & CONTROL OF A HEAT-INTEGRATED DISTILLATION SYSTEM 599

Figure 2. Prefractionato r/side stream column with forward heat integration.

Figure 3. Prefractionato r/side stream column with reverse heat integration.

decreased, but the reboiler duty (Qw1 ) must be increased.

Because this does not come by heat integration, there is a
penalty in terms of energy consumption. As in the previous
case, it is noted that decreasing Qw2 may not always work.
The systems investigated in this work are based on the
perfect-match alternative. In this way one manipulated
variable (the duty of the additional condenser or reboiler) is
missing. The inclusion of the auxiliary heat exchanger
should lead to better controllability. However, the improvement may be minimal because only a small duty change
will be available.
Additional energy can be recovered if various hot streams
are used to preheat the prefractionator or main column
feed streams. Because this article concentrates on the controllability analysis, the owsheet only includes heat
integration between the feed and product streams.

impuri ed with equal amounts of pentane and heptane;

heptane, 99%; 25C and 1 bar.
The following assumptions were made during the design:
ideal vapour-liquid equilibrium ; 100% tray ef ciency;
saturated liquid re ux; columns feed: saturated liquid,
0.1 bar pressure difference between the feed and the feed
tray; 10C pinch temperature difference for feed preheating; 10 temperature difference in heat-integrated
reboiler/condenser; pressure drops: 0.01 bar/tray, 0.05 bar
in condenser; residence times of 5 min in re ux drums
and 10 min in reboilers; heat transfer coef cients of
500 kcal m 2 2 h2 1 K 2 1 in the heat exchangers.
Steady state design was performed in ASPEN PLUS 19 ,
using RADFRAC Y models for the distillation columns.
When pinch analysis was applied, the feed preheating layout presented in Figures 2 and 3 was obtained. Table 2
summarizes the results of column sizing. Table 3 presents
the ow rate and composition of intermediate streams.

DESIGN RESULTS
The general design speci cations were:

CONTROLLABILITY ANALYSIS

(a) Feed: 150 kmol h 2 1 , equimolar pentane/hexane/heptane

mixture, at 25C and 1 bar.
(b) Product speci cation: pentane, 99%; hexane, 98%,

The main control objective is to maintain the products

concentration at their setpoints. The composition of the feed

Table 2. Results of the design of prefractionator /side stream column. Numbers in bold represent heat supplied/ removed by heat integration.
Design I

Design II

Design III

Design IV

PF

PF

PF

PF

2.007
24
12

2.393
28
6, 20
12
1

1.958
12
6

2.355
30
6, 23
12
1

2.144
15
10

2.405
28
5, 20
12
1

1.55
19
8

2.1668
28
6, 20
12
1

Forward heat integration

re ux ratio
total stages
feed tray (from top)
side-stream tray
top stage pressure (bar)
reboiler duty, 10 6 kcal h2 1
condenser duty, 10 6 kcal h2 1
feed preheat duty, 10 6 kcal h 2
total duty, 10 6 kcal h2 1

7.3
1.138
1

1.052

1.052
1.052

0.455
1.593

7.1
1.150

1.068

1.068
1.046

0.442
1.592

7.4
1.149

1.081

1.081
1.061

0.493
1.642

7.0
1.087

1.008

1.008
0.988

0.432
1.440

Reverse heat integration

re ux ratio
total stages
feed tray (from top)
side-stream tray
top stage pressure (bar)
reboiler duty, 10 6 kcal h2 1
condenser duty, 10 6 kcal h2
total duty, 10 6 kcal h2 1

0.891
20
10
1
1

0.911
0.8578

2.588
34
7, 25
15
5.95
1.558

0.911
1.558

Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999

0.980
10
5
1

0.922
0.8856

2.568
35
6, 26
15
5.4
1.542

0.922
1.542

1.016
15
9
1

0.916
0.869

2.568
35
6, 25
15
5.6
1.543

0.9160
1.543

0.828
15
6
1

0.895
0.853

2.5
35
7, 26
15
5.75
1.539

0.895
1.539

600

BILDEA and DIMIAN

Table 3. Flow rate and composition of the streams leaving the prefractionator .
Design I

Design II

Design III

Design IV

Distillate (kmol h2 1 )
Pentane (%)
Hexane (%)
Heptane (%)

66.5
75.16
24.81
0.03

67.54
73.27
25.91
0.82

64.84
75.72
24.21
0.07

73.20
68.28
31.17
0.55

Bottoms (kmol h2 )
Pentane (%)
Hexane (%)
Heptane (%)

83.5
0.02
40.11
59.86

82.46
0.62
39.41
59.97

85.16
1.07
40.28
58.65

76.80
0.03
35.39
64.58

Distillate (kmol h2 1 )
Pentane (%)
Hexane (%)
Heptane (%)

68
73.50
26.46
0.04

66.75
73.95
25.22
0.83

65
76.31
23.46
0.05

69.5
71.88
27.43
0.69

Bottoms (kmol h2 1 )
Pentane (%)
Hexane (%)
Heptane (%)

82
0.03
39.03
60.94

83.25
0.77
39.84
59.39

85
0.47
40.74
58.79

80.5
0.05
38.43
61.52

Forward heat integration

Reverse heat integration

stream is considered as a disturbance. Because distributed

control systems implementing PID controllers are widespread in the chemical industry, decentralised control is
of interest. In addition, an attempt is made to develop the
control system using temperature measurements to infer
the concentrations because composition analysers are
expensive, require maintenance and have unfavourable
dynam ics. The temperature-control trays were selected to be
close enough to product withdrawal, but still sensitive.
Typical temperature pro les in the side stream column are
presented in Figure 4.
It is noted that the performance of the control system can
be improved if concentration controllers are added. They
may give, in a cascade manner, the setpoint of the
temperature control loops. Therefore, the analysis will try
to assess both disturbance rejection and set point tracking
properties of different system designs. To accomplish
this task, the Closed Loop Disturbance Gain (CLDG)
and the Performance Relative Gain Array (PRGA), respectively are calculated. For an excellent presentation
of the controllability analysis tools, see Skogestad and
Postlethw aite 18 .
The controllability properties of Design I and III (and
Design II and IV) are similar, for both forward and reverse
heat integration schemes. For this reason, the results for
Design I and II are presented comparatively.
SPEEDUP 20 was used to simulate the dynam ic behaviour of the different con gurations. In all cases, levels
were controlled by the P-only algorithm . The maximum
allowed control error (e max ) and the maximum control
action (umax ) were chosen as 50% of the steady state value
of the controlled and manipulated variables, respectively.
The gain of the controllers was set to Kp = umax /e max . For
pressure controllers, the maximum allowed control error
was set to 0.1 bar and integral action (TI = 0 .2 h) was used.
Small adjustments of one of the operating parameters
(reboiler duty) were necessary to get the same stationary
state as the one obtained by steady state simulation in
ASPEN PLUS . (The differences may be due to the local
thermodynam ic model used by SPEEDUP ).
SPEEDUP allows two different types of dynam ic

simulation. In pressure-driven simulations, the pressuredrop across the valves determines the ow rates. In the
ow-driven case, the ow rates are speci ed. The latter
alternative assumes fast ow controllers and was used in
this study.
The state space linear model of the process was obtained
using the CDI (Control Design Interface) facility offered

Figure 4. Side stream column temperature pro les. E , feed; e , side stream;
F , temperature control.

Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999

INTERACTION BETWEEN DESIGN & CONTROL OF A HEAT-INTEGRATED DISTILLATION SYSTEM 601

by SPEEDUP :

dx(t)
dt

= A x(t) + B u(t) + Bd d(t)

= C x(t) + D u(t) + Dd d(t)

e(t) = r(t) 2 y(t)
y(t)

( 1)

x, u, d , y, e and r are the vectors of the state variables,

manipulated inputs, disturbances, controlled outputs, control errors and setpoints, respectively. A, B, Bd , C , D and Dd
are matrices of appropriate dimensions. In order to obtain
meaningful controllability results, the inputs, disturbances
and outputs were scaled. In terms of scaled variables, the
control objective is to keep | e(t)| < 1, using | u(t)| < 1, when
disturbances | d(t)| < 1 affect the process.
In terms of transfer functions, the linear model of the
process is given by:
y(s)

= G(s) u(s) + Gd (s) d(s)

( 2)

where:

= C(sI 2
Gd (s) = C(sI 2
G(s)

A) 2
A)

B+D

2 1

B d + Dd

( 3a )
( 3b )

Linear models were used only for controllability analysis. The full nonlinear model was used to evaluate the
performance of the control system.

Prefractionator/Side Stream Column with

Forward Integration
It is necessary to control four concentrations in the
product streams: B in top, A and C in side stream, and B in
bottom. If inferential control is used, it is necessary to
control four temperatures in the main column, corresponding to the four sections. Additionally , large amounts of
light/heavy component going in the bottom /distillate of the
prefractionator make the separation in main column very

dif cult. Consequently, it may be desirable to control the

composition of the streams leaving the prefractionator,
controlling two temperatures in the stripping and rectifying
sections.
However, after closing the inventory control loops, only
four manipulated variables are left: prefractionator re ux
ow rate and reboiler duty, main column re ux and side
draw ow rate. Moreover, dynam ic considerations discourage the use of prefractionator manipulated variables to
control temperatures in main column.
It was found that acceptable control could be achieved
when only one temperature is controlled in the prefractionator. Because the vapour dynam ics are faster than the
liquid dynamics, the re ux ratio is kept constant and one
temperature in the prefractionator bottom is controlled by
the reboiler duty. This loop gets the setpoint from a
controller regulating the temperature in the bottom of the
main column. The main column re ux and side draw ow
rates are used to control temperature in the top and between
the side stream and the second feed, respectively. The
proposed control structure is presented in Figure 5.
Table 4 gives the nominal values and scaling factors
for the manipulated inputs, controlled outputs and disturbances. The maximum change of the set point in temperature control loops was assumed to be 5C.
When decentralized control is of interest, the input-output
pairing may be evaluated using the Relative Gain Array,
de ned as:
L

= G (G 2

1 T

( 4)

For both designs analysed, the chosen pairing correspond

to positive diagonal elements in the RGA matrix.

&
=
?$

0.019

2 0 .492
1 .090

2 0.502

0 .402

1.483

L I (0)

2 0.109
1.100

Figure 5. Forward heat-integration. Control structure. Standard notation is used. YC denotes ratio controller.

Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999

?%

0.009

602

BILDEA and DIMIAN

Table 4. Control of prefractionator/ side stream column with forward heat integration. Nominal values and scaling
factors of outputs, inputs and disturbances.
Variable

Scaling factor

Design I

y1
y2
y3
u1
u2
u3

(PF stage 22 temperature, C)

(C stage 4 temperature, C)
(C stage 17 temperature, C)
(PF reboiler duty, 10 6 kcal h2 1 )
1
(C re ux ow rate, kmol h2 )
(C side draw ow rate, kmol h 2 1 )

167.3
40.3
81.8
1.15
119.6
50

1
0.5
0.5
0.58
60
25

Design II

y1
y2
y3
u1
u2
u3

(PF stage 10 temperature, C)

(C stage 4 temperature, C)
(C stage 17 temperature, C)
(PF reboiler duty, 10 6 kcal h2 1 )
1
(C re ux ow rate, kmol h2 )
(C side draw ow rate, kmol h 2 1 )

161.2
40.7
78.6
1.15
117.7
50

1
0.5
0.5
0.58
60
25

Disturbances

Light in feed
Intermediate in feed
Heavy in feed

&
=
?$

0 .082

2 1 .326
1 .155

2 1 .316

1 .171

2 .308

L II ( 0 )

Nominal value

?%

0.333
0.333
0.333

0 .019

2 0 .163
1 .145

Close-to-one diagonal elements denote little interaction.

Small values in the RGA matrix also indicate that model
uncertainty is not a problem .
The RGA_num ber, de ned as:

RGA2 number = i I 2

L (J v) i

sum

( 5)

has a small value and drops to zero for high frequency

(Figure 6), showing that good control performance is
possible.

0.1
0.1
0.1

Design I is (slightly) less interactive. However, because

interactions can help the disturbance rejection, it cannot be
concluded that it is also better.
To analyse the disturbance rejection properties, the
Closed Loop Disturbance Gain (CLDG) is calculated,
d
G

= G G 2

Gd

( 6)

is a matrix consisting of diagonal elements of G.

where G
Its elements, g dik , give the apparent gain of the k th
disturbance on the ith output under decentralized control.
The necessary condition to avoid inputs constraints is:

| gii | > | g dik | ,

; k

( 7)

Although in both cases the inputs are powerful enough to

reject disturbances (Figure 7), the second design is clearly
better.
The ability of the system to follow set point changes can
be analysed using the Performance Relative Gain Array:
G2 1
C =G
( 8)
Its elements, c ij , show how the ith manipulated input
must change when the jth setpoint is changed. More precisely, input saturation is not a problem if:

| gii | > | c ik | 3

| Rk | ,

; k,

( 9)

where Rk is the scaling factor of the k th setpoint.

Figure 8 shows the frequency dependent PRGA for the
second design (the results for the rst design are similar). To
allow comparison with the loop gain, they are multiplied
by the scaling factors for setpoint changes. The following
conclusions can be drawn:
Fast change of the prefractionator bottom temperature
( yI ) can not be achieved with the available manipulated
inputs (at high frequency, condition (9) is not satis ed for
k = 1).
f Input saturation may occur in the third loop (at high
frequency, condition (9) is not satis ed for i = 3).
f

Figure 6. Forward heat-integration. RGA2 number. The RGA2 number has

small values and drops to zero at high frequencies. Design I is less

interactive.

However, there are few negative implications on the

controllability properties. If temperatures are used to
infer concentration, fast setpoint tracking is not a concern.
When composition controllers provide the setpoint for the

Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999

INTERACTION BETWEEN DESIGN & CONTROL OF A HEAT-INTEGRATED DISTILLATION SYSTEM 603

Figure 7. Forward heat-integration. Frequency dependent loop gain, gii (} ) and CLDG elements, gdik (f k
disturbance rejection properties.

temperature control loops, the system will be almost all

the time close to the desired operating point; hence, only
small adjustments of the temperature setpoints will be
necessary.
It is concluded that the prefractionator/side stream
column with forward heat integration has very good controllability properties. The practice of a small prefractionator (doing just the necessary separation) is justi ed
(at least for the case analysed) by its better disturbance
rejection properties.

Prefractionator/Side Stream Column with

Reverse Integration
After closing the inventory control loops, four manipulated variables are left for temperature (composition)
control: prefractionator re ux ow rate, main column
re ux and side stream ow rate, and reboiler duty. There
are six temperatures it may be necessary to control,
corresponding to the two sections of the prefractionator
and the four sections of the main column.
Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999

= 1, k = 2, 3

= 3). Design II has better

A control structure, similar to the one developed for the

forward integration scheme, can be imagined (Figure 9).
The re ux ow rate controls one temperature in the top
of the prefractionator (no input is available to control the
temperature in the bottom ). In the main column, the re ux
ratio is kept constant and reboiler duty is used to control the
bottom temperature. One temperature located either above
or below the side stream is controlled by the side stream
ow rate. However, strong interactions make it unfeasible.
A typical steady state RGA matrix is:
L I (0)

&
=
?$

1.144

0 .008

2 0.164
0.019

2 0 .001
0 .990

?%

2 0.153
1.165
2 0.012

The small values of the last two diagonal elements

show strong interaction. Moreover, their negative sign
means that the system is not decentralized integral
controllable 18 , i.e. there exists no diagonal controller with
integral action such that both of the following conditions
are true: (a) The closed loop system is stable. (b) The gains

604

BILDEA and DIMIAN

that the control of the temperature in the middle of the main
column is responsible for the negative diagonal elements
in the RGA matrix. Hence, if only temperatures are measured,
the side stream ow cannot be the manipulated variable in a
control loop. However, keeping the side stream constant is
unacceptable, because any change of the feed ow rate of the
intermediate component will result in impure products.
A successful control structure (Figure 10) can be developed if the ow rate of the side stream is used to control
its composition. The nominal and scaling values of the
controlled outputs, manipulated inputs and disturbances
are presented in Table 5.
For both designs analysed, the chosen pairing correspond
to positive diagonal RGA elements:

&
=?
??$

1.824

L I (0)

0 .028

2.758

11 .90

0.036

1 .273

2 3.618

2 12.20

RGA 2 number( 0)

&
??
?$

L II ( 0 )

Figure 8. Forward heat-integration, Design II. Frequency dependent

loop gain gii (} ) and PRGA elements c ik Rk (f k = 1, k = 2, 3
k = 3). Fast setpoint change may cause input saturation.

of any subset of loops can be arbitrarily reduced without

causing system instability.
Adding a fourth control loop, in which the main column
re ux ow rate controlled top temperature, did not help.
Several other control structures were tried and it was found

0 .002

??
?%

2 0 .853
2 13 .66

0 .445

2 0 .755

0 .552

16 .27

= 63.3.
2 1 .625

1 .265

0 .001

2 0 .05

23.15

0 .050

2 21 .92

2 0 .052

2 18 .66

0 .151

19 .56

RGA 2 number( 0)

2 1 .868

= 90.5

0 .803

??
?%

1 .364

2 0 .283
0 .068

1.997

For high frequencies, both RGA 2 numbers drop to zero,

showing that control performance is possible.
Figure 11 presents the closed loop disturbance gain.
The main difference between Design I and Design II is in
the disturbance rejection properties of the second control
loop (main column top temperature re ux ow rate). In
the rst case, all disturbances can be properly rejected.

Figure 9. Reverse heat-integration. Unfeasible control structure using only temperature measurements. Standard notation is used. YC denotes ratio controller.

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INTERACTION BETWEEN DESIGN & CONTROL OF A HEAT-INTEGRATED DISTILLATION SYSTEM 605

Figure 10. Reverse heat-integration. Feasible control structure using side stream composition analyzer.

In the second case, the maximum allowed change of the

re ux ow rate is not big enough to reject any of the three
disturbances. There are also some problems with the rst
control loop (Design II performs slightly better). However,
this loop is not directly related to product purity.
The frequency-dependent PRGA is similar to the forward
heat-integration case. Input saturation may occur in some
control loops, if fast tracking is required for certain setpoints.
However, as previously discussed, this will rarely be the case.
It is concluded that the controllability properties of the
prefractionator/side stream con guration with reverse
heat-integration are worse than for the forward integration
scheme. If only temperature measurements are available, good
control is impossible due to strong interactions. A feasible
control structure, in which the composition of the side stream

is measured, was developed. The controllability properties are

better if the prefractionator performs a sharp A/C split.
The authors acknowledge the anonym ous reviewer
who suggested an option to ratio the side stream to the
re ux ow rate. The closed-loop performance of this
strategy was investigated. It achieves good control of the
top and bottom purity. However, there is a rather large
(about 2%) steady state error of the side stream composition.
Hence, when tight control of the intermediate product purity
is not required, this control scheme is also a good option.

CLOSED LOOP DYNAMIC SIMULATION

The performance of the proposed control con gurations was tested using the SPEEDUP nonlinear model. A

Table 5. Control of prefractionator /side stream column with reverse heat integration. Nominal values and scaling
factors of outputs, inputs and disturbances.
Variable

Nominal value

Scaling factor

Design I

y1
y2
y3
y4
u1
u2
u3
u4

(PF stage 4 temperature, C)

(C stage 4 temperature, C)
(C side stream purity, C)
(C stage 27 temperature, C)
(PF re ux ow rate, kmol h 2 1 )
(C re ux ow rate, kmol kmol 2 1 )
1
(C side draw ow rate, kmol h 2 )
(C reboiler duty, 10 6 kcal h 2 1 )

56.7
104.1
0.98
168
60.6
129.4
50
1.56

1
0.5
0.02
0.5
30.0
36
25
0.78

Design II

y1
y2
y3
y4
u1
u2
u3
u4

(PF stage 4 temperature, C)

(C stage 3 temperature, C)
(C side stream purity, C)
(C stage 28 temperature, C)
1
(PF re ux ow rate, kmol h 2 )
(C re ux ow rate, kmol h2 1 )
1
(C side draw ow rate, kmol h 2 )
1
(C reboiler duty, 10 6 kcal h 2 )

61.2
98.7
0.98
165.6
65.4
128.4
50
1.54

1
0.5
0.02
0.5
30
36
25
0.78

Disturbances

Light in feed
Intermediate in feed
Heavy in feed

Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999

0.333
0.333
0.333

0.1
0.1
0.1

606

BILDEA and DIMIAN

Figure 11. Reverse heat-integration. Frequency dependent loop gain, gii ( } ) and CLDG elements, gdik (f k
manipulated input is not strong enough to reject the disturbances.

typical run required about 80 seconds, on a Pentium II

350 MHz computer.
Design I was analysed for the forward heat-integration
con guration. For the reverse heat-integration arrangement,
Design II was investigated. A lag time of 1 min was
assumed for temperature sensors. A dead time of 3 min
was assumed for composition analysers. Control structures
presented in Figures 5 and 10 were used. The parameters
of the PI controllers were found by trial-and-error. They are
presented in Table 6.

= 1, k = 2,3

k = 3). In Design II, the second

The control system performance, as deviation of the

products concentration from the design values, is presented
in Figure 12. Disturbances D1 , D2 and D3 correspond to
increases of the feed concentration of pentane, hexane and
heptane, respectively. In each case, one concentration was
increased from 33.3% to 43.3% , while the other two were
decreased to 28.3% .
If the magnitude of the disturbances is taken into account,
the performance of the control system seems acceptable.
The purity deviation is less than 0.5% for all streams. The

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INTERACTION BETWEEN DESIGN & CONTROL OF A HEAT-INTEGRATED DISTILLATION SYSTEM 607

Table 6. Controller tuning.
Kp

Forward heat integration

Loop 1
Loop 2
Loop 3
Loop 4
(Column tray 27 temperature Loop 1 setpoint)

Reverse heat integration

Loop
Loop
Loop
Loop

1
2
3
4

0.012 10 6 kcal C 2
60 kmol h2 1 C 2 1
25 kmol h2 1 C 2 1
5C C 2 1

TI
1

10 kmol h2 1 C 2 1
13 kmol h2 1 C 2 1
5 kmol h2 1 % 2 1
0.78 10 6 kcal h2 1 C 2

0.2 h
0.2 h
0.2 h
0.2 h

0.2 h
0.2 h
0.2 h

Figure 12. Control system performance. } pentane, f hexane, heptane. Disturbances D1 , D2 , D3 , correspond to increase of the feed concentration of
pentane, hexane and heptane, respectively, from 0.33 to 0.43. Control structures are presented in Figures 5 and 10 (the composition-tem perature cascades
were not used). Controller tuning is presented in Table 6.

Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999

608

BILDEA and DIMIAN

settling time is less than 0.5 hours for forward heatintegration and less than 2 hours for reverse heat-integration. It
is noted that the steady state error in concentration can be
removed if concentration controllers are used.

CONCLUSIONS
The relationship between the design and the control of a
heat-integrated distillation set-up consisting of a prefractionator and a main column with side stream is analysed.
Both forward and reverse heat-integration schemes were
investigated. Detailed results are presented for the separation of an equimolar pentane-hexane-heptane mixture, with
moderate purity requirements. These results were con rmed
by the high purity separation of the benzene-toluene-xylene
mixture.
1. Four different designs were investigated, both for
forward and reverse heat-integration. Energy integration
took into account a total match of the reboiler and condenser
of the rst/second and second/ rst columns, respectively,
as well as feed preheating with products excess enthalpy.
Design I considered a tall prefractionator for sharp light/
heavy split, while Design II considered a shorter prefractionator for a moderate light/heavy split. In the other cases,
the prefractionator was designed for high recovery of the
light, or of the heavy component, respectively. In all designs
the number of stages varied signi cantly for the prefractionator,
but remained practically constant for the main column.
2. In all cases, the total energy consumption varied only
slightly. Consequently, energy recovery cannot be a selection criterion between alternatives. However, the dynam ic
behaviour showed signi cant differences.
3. MIMO linear controllability analysis in the frequency
domain was performed to evaluate the dynamic properties
of alternative designs. Large disturbances in feed concentration of the three components were considered. Among
controllability indices Closed Loop Disturbance Gain
(CLDG) and Performance Relative Gain Array (PRGA)
were calculated. The controllability analysis predicts, in
all situations, better dynamic properties for the forward
heat-integration scheme compared with the reverse one.
This behaviour was tested by closed loop simulation with
the full non-linear model.
4. For the preferred forward integration scheme, an
ef cient control structure, using only temperature measurements, was developed. The design with a short prefractionator has, by far, the best performance.
5. The control of the reverse heat-integration scheme does not
work with only temperature measurements. The system is
controllable only if the concentration of the side stream can be
measured. Moreover, better disturbance rejection is possible
with a sharp light/heavy split in the prefractionator.
6. The behaviour of a high purity separation of a benzenetoluene-xyl ene mixture was tested, similarly to the work of
Ding and Luyben 15 , who developed a quite complex control
structure for the reverse heat-integration scheme. For
forward heat-integration, the simple temperature-based
control structure works well. This con rms the better controllability of the forward heat-integration arrangement.
7. It may be concluded that in general the forward heatintegration scheme is easier to control. A possible explanation

may be the absence of a positive feedback of energy, which is

very likely in the reverse heat-integration scheme.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to acknowledge the nancial support provided for
C. S. Bildea by The Graduate School for Process Technology (OSPT),
The Netherlands.

ADDRESS
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to
A. C. Dimian, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of
Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, 1018 WV Amsterdam, The
Netherlands. (E-mail: alexd@chemeng .chem.uva.nl). C. S. Bildea is now
at Department of Chemical Engineering, University Politechnica
Bucharest, Spl. Independentei 313, 77206 Bucharest, Romania.

The manuscript was received 11 January 1999 and accepted for

publication after revision 1 July 1999.

Trans IChemE, Vol 77, Part A, October 1999