Challenges for process systems engineering in infrastructure design

Infrastructures are process systems, with an enhanced social and political component. Process systems engineering (PSE) has the technologies and tools to design process systems, so we should not be remiss in taking a lead role in the relatively new research area of design and operation of infrastructures. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of applying PSE knowledge to the design of infrastructures. An infrastructure includes the sources, networks and sinks in transportation of people and goods, telecommunications, energy, water, and waste. The problems encountered in the design of these infrastructures are similar to the selection of unit operations, optimization of plant operations, connectivity of the process units, facility layout, and finally process intensification. Overall, we will demonstrate the manner in which the design of an infrastructure can be formulated and potentially solved by the current methods employed in PSE and the chemical process industry. The design and operation of infrastructures hence provide an extensive new area of research for process systems engineers. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.