Process Systems Enterprise, Ltd. (PSE; London, U.K.; www.psenterprise.com) has just released version 3.2 of the gPROMS advanced process modeling (APM) software. gPROMS is widely used by large process industry companies in the oil & gas, chemicals and petrochemicals, power generation, clean energy, food & beverage, consumer products, pharmaceutical and other process sectors. Key applications are accelerating innovation, managing development risk and optimizing process design and operation through the application of high-accuracy mathematical models of processes and products.
The new version contains significant enhancements to the ability to handle discrete logic within the equation-oriented modeling environment, as well as numerous productivity, speed and robustness enhancements.
PSE managing director Costas Pantelides says “v3.2 continues our rollout of the third generation advanced process modeling technology. This combines the best of both worlds for users, by delivering gPROMS’s unrivalled custom modeling capabilities within a flowsheeting environment familiar to process engineers.”
Building on gPROMS’ already strong capabilities for modeling and optimizing both complex physics and discrete operating procedures, the new version allows each physical model to incorporate discrete logic that is automatically triggered for every instance of the model included in a flowsheet. This allows, for example, gPROMS library models to include sophisticated supervisory controllers, whose execution is completely transparent to end-users.
v3.2 contains significantly enhanced diagnostics that make information more easily accessible both for model developers and users. These include facilities for diagnosing over-and under specification and making intelligent suggestions for the choice of specification variables. There is improved analysis and assistance for numerical troubleshooting during execution, as well as improved information at the flowsheet level during model construction.
There are a number of usability enhancements aimed at simplifying the creation and maintenance of complex flowsheets. These range from minor improvements such as the ability to align flowsheet elements to the ability to use text array indices (for examplem component names) consistently throughout gPROMS, including dialogue specifications.
For results presentation, a new data export facility provides semi-automated selective export of variables to post-processing facilities such as MS Excel for — for example — pivot table analysis. In addition to providing formatted output and addition calculations, this helps reduce model size and execution time.
Numerical enhancements and exact model reduction techniques mean that many classes of problem now run up to 20% faster in less memory, building on gPROMS’s already renowned reputation for speed and robustness.
Prof. Pantelides adds “The release of v3.2 demonstrates PSE’s continuing commitment to enabling process industry companies to capture their IP in models and systematically use these to generate value at all levels.”