16 Dec. 2004

POST.DOC. POSITION PLANTWIDE CONTROL AT NTNU

Principal objectives and subgoals 
Plantwide control deals with structure of the control system for a complete chemical plant. This is a widely recognized as the most important issue for chemical process control, yet its theoretical basis remains quite weak. The principal objective of this project is to strengthen the theoretical basis for the structural issues related to plantwide control. This application is for funding for one or more post.doc.s for a total period of 3 years. 

Project summary 
Recently, Skogestad (2004} have also proposed a systematic method for control structure. The proposed research will focus on further improvement of this method, including the following issues:
1. Self-optimizing Control
2. Achievable decentralized performance
3. Decentralized integral controllability
4. Computational complexity
5. Complexity of the control system
6. Secondary controlled variables

When completed, the utility of the proposed approach will be demonstrated through case studies, e.g. the Vinyl Acetate process. At the completion of this project, a systematic method will emerge that would help the plant engineers for control structure design of new plants as well as retrofit of existing plants. It is expected that in addition to improving control, the analysis will also reveal some directions for design of energy efficient plants. 

Project publication plan
The principal investigator (S. Skogestad) has an excellent publication record, and all the relevant results from this work will be published in international journals. Also, the results have industrial relevance, and close contact will be maintained with Norwegian industry, including Statoil, Hydro, Gassco and ABB as well as smaller companies like Cybernetica, Prediktor and Fantoft Prosess. Through our participation in the new EU-funded Research training network PROMATCH  (Marie Curie) the results will also be disseminated to researchers and students throughout Europe.

Conditions:
Contract will be for 2 years, Salary (taxable): About NOK 29000 per month. (3500 Euro per month)
Please send application as soon as possible (before Feb. 2005) to: Professor Sigurd Skogestad
 


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Sigurd Skogestad, Professor and Head    Phone:  +47-7359-4154
Department of Chemical Engineering       Home:   +47-7393-6855
Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology (NTNU)  Fax: 7359-4080
N-7491 Trondheim                   email: skoge@chemeng.ntnu.no
Norway                                http://www.nt.ntnu.no/users/skoge
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