An evolutionary method of arranging the plot plan for process plant layout

Abstract

The equipment layout of a process plant is a multi-objective problem in which not only various costs (piping, site and so on) but also preferences about the equipment arrangement influencing its operability, maintenance and the like. It is difficult to obtain the best solution of this problem analytically. In this study, preferences are weighted as penalities so that they can be evaluated in an objective function with costs. To reduce the calculation load, equipment having spatial relations in a local area is put together into “modules” as units in layout work, and these modules are grouped into “sections” as functional groups of equipment. Furthermore, the module arrangement in each section is considered to be two variables (permutation and partition), and an algorithm based on an evolutionary method is developed to search a good plot plan efficiently. The effectiveness of this proposed method is demonstrated by an example problem. © 1991, The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan. All rights reserved.