Themodynamic controlabillity assessment focused on heat exchanger networks

In recent times, the interaction between process design and control has become the focus of research and development, because not always the best process design features the best dynamic performance, with implications in the controllability of the plant. It is then proposed a simultaneous approach of economic goals and controllability in the early stages of the project design. Recent studies have shown that a thermodynamic analysis with a dissipative approach, can lead to reaching how much a process can be integrated while not compromising its controllability. In this paper we use a methodology proposed by Meeuse et al (2004) where we can obtain a response time, as a measure of controllability of our process system applied to a heat exchanger network, showing the relation between energy and entropy production and process controllability.