(188e) Visualization and Modeling of Chemical Processes Via Mosaic

Visualization and Modeling of Chemical Processes via MOSAIC

The use of computer modeling and simulation of chemical processes provides the opportunity to visualize, solve, and optimize complex chemical engineering systems. The goal of this research is to use a visual simulation of a chemical process to quickly produce accurate equations and design specifications describing the process, reversing the typical method of creating visuals from specifications. This is accomplished using the program MOSAIC (Kraus et al., 2014), a web-based modeling, simulation, and optimization environment. MOSAIC allows for the formulation of equation systems describing the units of a chemical process. Once these equations are entered, they are solved and code for the solution is produced in various languages; a flow diagram is generated in MOSAIC. The process is then reversed. Using drawing capabilities from the Microsoft Office suite, a process flow diagram is created and uploaded to MOSAIC. From that diagram, specific equations are automatically generated which represent the entire process. In this way, instead of having to derive the modeling equations manually from the process diagram and then solve those equations, this system created the equations and solved them automatically and efficiently. The computational results determined that MOSAIC can effectively formulate the system equations from a process flow diagram, building the equations directly from the visualization and not from a quantity of pre-set units, and that with the addition of more units in the program, it will be possible to develop equations on a larger scale.

Kraus, R., Fillinger, S., Tolksdorf, G., Minh, Ducâ??H., Merchan-Restrepo, Victorâ??A. and Wozny, G. (2014), Improving Model and Data Integration Using MOSAIC as Central Data Management Platform, Chemie Ingenieur Technik, doi: 10.1002/cite.201400007