ROBUSTNESS ANALYSIS OF A FIXED-BED TUBULAR REACTOR: IMPACT OF MODELING DECISIONS

A robustness analysis technique is applied to the control of a tubular fixed-bed reactor. Critical modeling decisions such as lumping and order reduction are evaluated in terms on their impact on the model/plant mismatch and its consequences in closed-loop stability and performance. It is shown that a previously proposed control scheme lacks robustness and thus is very difficult to control in the presence of modeling errors.