The Complex Topology of Chemical Plants

TL;DR

This paper reveals that the flow diagrams of oil refineries exhibit complex network properties like scale-free and small-world characteristics, arising from design principles, and likely apply broadly to various chemical plants.

Contribution

It demonstrates that chemical plant flowsheets naturally form complex networks with specific topological features due to design principles.

Findings

Refineries' flowsheets are scale-free networks.

They exhibit small-world effects and hierarchical organization.

These properties result from design heuristics and algorithms.

Abstract

We show that flowsheets of oil refineries can be associated to complex network topologies that are scale-free, display small-world effect and possess hierarchical organization. The emergence of these properties from such man-made networks is explained as a consequence of the currently used principles for process design, which include heuristics as well as algorithmic techniques. We expect these results to be valid for chemical plants of different types and capacities.