Reverse problem formulation based techniques for process and product synthesis and design

In this paper, a new technique for model reduction that is based on rearranging a part of the model representing the constitutive equations is presented. The rearrangement of the constitutive equations leads to the definition of a new set of pseudo-intensive variables, where the component compositions are replaced by reduction parameters in the process model. Since the number of components dominates the size of the traditional model equations, a significant reduction of the model size is obtained through this new technique. Some interesting properties of this new technique is that the model reduction does not introduce any approximations to the model, it does not change the physical location of the process variables and it provides a visualization of the process and operation that otherwise would not be possible. Furthermore by employing the recently introduced principle of reverse problem formulations, the solution of integrated process/product design problem becomes simpler and more flexible.