DATA ADJUSTMENT FOR NON-REACTIVE BATCH OR STEADY-STATE PROCESSES

An analytical method was developed to adjust inconsistent process data by a least-sum-of-squares technique to “best” meet all material balance constraints. One complete data set composed of “M” stream flow rates with “N” components in each stream was used from either batch or steady-state non-reactive processes to define an unconstrained sum-of-squares adjustment function

Derivatives of the unconstrained sum-of-squares adjustment function with respect to each variable were set to zero yielding a set of non-linear algebraic equations. The entire non-linear set was solved by converging on only M— 2 search variables as compared to conventional methods requiring N(M — 1) — 1 search variables.