Model Predictive Control for n-Butyl Acetate Distillation Column via Aspen-MATLAB Co-Simulation

Xiangyu Zhang; Mingge Sun; Yiliang Chen

doi:10.54097/an54g194

Authors

Xiangyu Zhang School of Information and Control Engineering, Jilin University of Chemical Technology, Jilin, 132022, China
Mingge Sun School of Information and Control Engineering, Jilin University of Chemical Technology, Jilin, 132022, China
Yiliang Chen School of Information and Control Engineering, Jilin University of Chemical Technology, Jilin, 132022, China

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/an54g194

Keywords:

Distillation column; MPC; Control algorithm.

Abstract

To address the issues of significant fluctuations in conventional PID control and the susceptibility of product purity to disturbances in n-butyl acetate production, a steady-state model was first established in Aspen Plus and then imported into Aspen Dynamics to obtain a dynamic simulation model of the process. On the basis of the conventional control structure, a model predictive control (MPC) scheme was designed through a co-simulation platform integrating MATLAB and Aspen Dynamics. Simulation results demonstrate that the MPC scheme can effectively suppress dynamic fluctuations caused by feed flow disturbances, with notably reduced amplitudes of product purity variations. This achieves smooth and efficient operation of the n-butyl acetate production process, along with a significant enhancement in product quality stability.

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