Modeling and MPC-based Method for Planning Transportation of Multiple Oil Products in Pipeline Network

Multiple pipeline networks are planned and under construction for long-distance transportation of some petroleum derivatives through a system of pipes typically towards the market areas for consumption. The main purpose of this paper in the form of planning problem consists of demand regulation and efficiency improvement based on optimization factors such as descend total transportation losses and increase response time to satisfy demands regarding plant specification and systematic constraints. The planning process as a scheme that defines how to transport petroleum products and batch sequences injected consecutively through pipeline polyducts with no separating device is one of the most prominent challenges facing industrial engineering. In this paper, the yearly demands are split into monthly problems so that considering two-month prediction horizons, model predictive control strategy is applied to optimize sequences which are regulating demands in the corresponding time steps to the last day of every month. The hierarchical offline reoptimization for the small-sized problem at the beginning of every month, instead of optimizing annual planning as a high dimensional and constrained problem can lead to overcoming computational complexity that is a remarkable challenge in the planning.