Thesis (M.Eng.)--Chulalongkorn University, 2008

The most important task in a chemical process is controlling the process to achieve of process safety, production rates, and product quality. Generally, a chemical plant consists of reaction sections and separation section. Both sections need to control system for the safety and economical in plant. In this research, modification of the separation section of HDA process and the use of heat exchanger network (HEN) to save energy are proposed. The traditional HDA distillation train is replaced by a new design. Furthermore, four new heat exchanger networks (HENs) are developed. The plantwide control structures are designed using the disturbance load propagation method (Wongsri, M., 1990) and heat pathway heuristics (Wongsri, M. and Hermawan Y.D., 2005), respectively. Two kinds of disturbances: thermal and material disturbances are used in evaluation of the plantwide control structures. The performances of the heat integrated plants (HIPs) and the control structures evaluated dynamically by commercial software HYSYS.