Optimal retrofit design and operation of the steam-supply system of a chemical complex

It is inordinately difficult to optimise the steam-supply system of a chemical complex under the condition that the production capacities of a multitude of products vary temporarily. Any of the available general-purpose methods for optimal design and operation hardly suffices for this purpose; therefore, a specific-purpose method has been developed in the current work. The efficacy of the resultant method is illustrated by optimising the steam-supply system of an existing chemical complex. The complex consists of one power-plant; one boiler station; four production plants operated in batch; one production plant operated continuously; and one pipeline network.