Chemical Engineering Research & Design, Vol.82, No.5, 579-586, 2004
An MILP approach to safe process plant layout
This paper presents a general mathematical programming formulation considering simultaneously process plant layout and safety. The proposed model determines the detailed process plant layout (coordinates and orientation of each equipment item), the number and type of protection devices in order to reduce possible accidents and the financial risk utilizing the Dow Fire and Explosion Index system. The overall problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model and its applicability is demonstrated by an illustrative example.