Process Systems Enterprise Limited
email this page print this page
pdf overview

PSE Model-Based Innovation Prize

Winning paper

WENO scheme with static grid adaptation for tracking steep moving fronts, Ala Eldin Bouaswaig & Sebastian Engell, Technische Universität Dortmund. Published in Chemical Engineering Science, June 2009.

Abstract

The numerical solution of a hyperbolic or a convection-dominated parabolic partial differential equation is challenging due to the large local gradients that are present in the solution. A possible method to track the sharp fronts that are associated with large gradients is to adapt the grid and this can be done dynamically or statically, i.e. at discrete points of time during the simulation. In this paper, a novel approach that is based on combining the high-order WENO scheme with a static moving grid method is presented. The proposed algorithm is tested on the viscid Burgers' equation, the linear advection equation and the population balance equation that describes particle growth in emulsion polymerization. Enhancements in the performance are observed in all case studies when compared with the conventional WENO scheme on a uniform grid making it a promising alternative when dealing with similar problems. [Full paper ]

Biographies

Ala Eldin Bouaswaig

Image of Ala Eldin Bouaswaig
     Ala Eldin Bouaswaig

Ala Eldin Bouaswaig received his Bachelor in Chemical Engineering from Bright Star University of Technology, Libya, and his Masters in Process Systems Engineering from TU Dortmund, Germany in 2006. He then joined the Process Dynamics and Operations Group as a PhD student.

His research interests are in modelling, simulation and control of particulate processes. The research is funded by the General People's Committee for Higher Education, Libya and the NRW Graduate School of Production Engineering and Logistics at TU Dortmund, Germany. Ala Eldin Bouaswaig received the prize for the best student of the department in 2006. For more details visit http://cms.dyn.bci.tu-dortmund.de/en/staff/scholarship-holders/alaeldin-bouaswaig-msc.

Sebastian Engell

Image of Sebastian Engell
     Prof. Sebastian Engell

Sebastian Engell received a Dipl.-Ing degree in Electrical Engineering from Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, in 1978 and the Dr.-Ing. Degree and the venia legendi in Automatic Control from Universität Duisburg in 1981 and 1987.

From 1984–85 he spent a year as a PostDoc at McGill University, Montréal, Canada. From 1986–1990 he was the head of an R&D group at the Fraunhofer Institut IITB in Karlsruhe, Germany. in 1990 he was appointed to his present position as a Full Professor of Process Dynamics and Operations in the Department of Chemical Engineering at TU Dortmund. He was Department Chairman from 1996–1999 and Vice-Rector for Research from 2002–2006. He served as Co-Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology from 1992–2000 and is currently Associate Editor of Mathematical and Computer Modelling of Dynamical Systems and of the Journal of Process Control, and a Member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Control.

Sebastian Engell is a Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). He received best paper awards of the Journal of Process Control for the period 2005-2008 and, with Thomas Tometzki, of the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation in 2009. His research interests are advanced process control, design and verification of logic controllers, scheduling of batch plants under uncertainty and optimization-based process design. For more details visit http://cms.dyn.bci.tu-dortmund.de/en/staff/head.