"gProms"—Process Simulation In 3D

N/Aral of the academic institutions in the UK have been the fountainhead of much of the work in process modeling and simulation. Now, one of those—Imperial College (London), which has the Centre for Process Systems Engineering—is well on its way to commercializing what might be called the next wave in process simulation. This new wave combines the control and modeling capabilities of traditional simulation with the ability to analyze reactions as they occur in process equipment—the 3D effects of bed dimensions, mixing zones and the like (see figure).

Last week (Nov. 18), Process Systems Enterprise, Ltd. (PSE; London), the commercial arm of the Centre for Process Systems Engineering, announced that ver. 1.7 of gProms would be available this spring. It also noted that Bayer AG has purchased the current version for use worldwide in process development. Various levels of developmental programs are going on at other chemical companies, such as APV (Siebe), BASF, Dow, DuPont, ICI, Mitsubishi Chemical, Nestle and Shell, according to PSE.

Key officers in PSE are Costas Pantelides, head of gPROMS development and director of the company (and on the staff of the Centre for Process Systems Engineering), and Sandro Macchietto, chairman and managing director. Pantelides was one of the original developers of Speedup, which was acquired several years ago by Aspen Technology (Cambridge, MA) as its dynamic simulation package. Macchietto has been a professor at Imperial College, and developer of SuperBatch, an advanced scheduling system that PSE is also commercializing.

The formal introduction of gProms 1.7 will be at the AIChE national meeting this spring. But PSE has announced enough of its features to get a sense of where this technology is going. PSE says that gProms is the first process modeling tool to allow the direct mathematical description of "distributed" unit operations—those involving variation of properties with spatial position as well as time. And there is no limit on the number of spatial dimensions that can be handled. This is said to free the engineer from trying to construct crude approximations of such operations as series of well-mixed volumes or being involved in complex mathematical manipulations of the process model.

PSE says that gProms is capable of both steady-state and dynamic simulation and parameter estimation. With its emphasis on process discontinuities, gProms is clearly geared toward batch processing, and the company says that its technology has already been used successfully to model tubular reactors, packed beds (adsorption, distillation, chromatographic separations) and membrane separators. It can also handle solid-phase, variable unit operations such as particle-size distributions in crystallization, or varying molecular weights in polymerizations.

Finally, the company says that it has paid close attention to the latest techniques in communication and interoperability. The new release includes a Windows NT version, capabilities to use general physical properties packages and external graphic user interfaces, and a comprehensive model library and a range of connectivity tools. It is also said to provide a "fully open solution" according to the procedures recommended by CAPE-Open, a far-reaching interoperability effort primarily driven from Europe. The company refers to four levels of "component" integration, including the Unix-based Corba standard. It also claims smooth interfacing with control software such as Scada programs.

"This is interoperability on a scale which other simulation companies have not yet come close to," says Pantelides. "It allows users to easily build integrated simulation solutions involving 'best-of-breed' components, as well as to make the most of their existing technology."

"The process simulation scene has changed dramatically over the last 18 months, driven by acquisitions and mergers of specialist providers into ever larger suppliers of everything," declares Macchietto. "While there is a very strong need and user demand for integrated solutions, there is still no evidence that economies of scale apply to this business and that single vendors can deliver the entire answer."

Dr. Andreas Schuppert, responsible for chemical engineering software within Bayer AG, says that the commercial strategy of PSE fits well with Bayer's goals. "Our strategic view on simulation software is an integrated suite of tools which consists mainly of commercial products, extended by in-house developments in areas where appropriate commercial software is not available. Bayer has collaborated on research for many years with the group at Imperial College who developed the initial ideas behind gProms, and we have followed with great interest the launch of a commercial operation in the form of PSE Ltd."

Although some of what PSE is promoting strikes the reader as interesting mostly to academic study, the company claims significant real-world benefits. At one client, a user recently reported an anticipated development time of six months reduced to just six weeks, according to PSE. Improvements of almost 50% in internal representation and of a factor of up to 3-4 in computational efficiency mean that gPROMS can now run sizeable problems in 64MB of memory on a standard PC.

How much of a trend is PSE leading? Most simulation efforts these days are directed toward supply chain management, rather than toward optimizing designs. However, Hyprotech Ltd. (Calgary, AB), one of the leading modeling developers, appears to be heading in this direction. The company, which was acquired by AEA Engineering Software a year ago, is talking about links to the leading-edge technologies of CFX computational fluid dynamics from AEA, and announced this fall that it would work with, and be a distributor of, the fluid-mixing modeling software of Visimix Ltd. (Jerusalem, Israel). And on the interoperability front, PSE is claiming the same sort of NT-type component methods used by companies like <%=company%> (San Leandro, CA), which operates in the process-historian application area.

For hardcore process engineers that have been distracted by the ongoing emphasis on connecting simulation tools to much larger business-planning information systems, and who have been looking for a new level of sophistication in engineering design and analysis, gProms might be what they've been waiting for. But it's hard to say whether better designs, versus better information management from installed process equipment, is what the marketplace wants.

By Nick Basta

For more information: Process Systems Enterprise Ltd., Bridge Studios 107a, Hammersmith Bridge Road, London, W6 9DA, UK. Telephone: +44 181 563 0888. Fax: +44 181 563 0999.