Selection of decompositions for chemical process simulation

A method has been developed for selection of the set of torn streams in a process simulation that leads to convergence of a direct substitution calculation in the minimum number of iterations. It is based on the establishment of families of decompositions, the members of each of which have identical convergence behavior. Explicit criteria for choice among families have been found that lead, in almost every case, to a single optimum decomposition family. These results have been verified by application to several chemical process simulation examples.