Modeling and Optimization of Evaporation Process in Sugar Industries

Abstract

Model preparation of evaporation process and optimizing the same have been a challenging task for researchers. Evaporation process in sugar industries is characterized by its highly non-linear nature and conventional control strategies do not yield good results for the control of the same. With the evaporator being the most energy consuming unit in sugar manufacturing process, it has direct impact on sugar quality as well as steam economy. In this paper, a simulation model of an evaporator having four effects has been developed in Simulink. For optimizing this model, Taguchi technique combined with Grey relational analysis has been employed. The level of influence of variables like Temperature of the feed, Rate of flow of the feed and Rate of steam flow, on the steam economy and sugarcane juice concentration has been determined using ANOVA (Analysis of Variance). Minitab 17 software has been used for this. Finally, the relative contribution of each process parameter on the performance characteristics of the evaporator has also been determined.