Flexible operations design is one of the key challenges of process engineering over the last years. However, even when uncertainty during the design phase is taken into account, the vast majority of research works refer to steady state conditions only, neglecting the system behaviour during the transition from the nominal state to the perturbed one. The final design validation indeed can be obtained only accounting for process dynamics, i.e. for the process control configuration.

This research work then carries out the dynamic flexibility assessment both for simple and more complex systems, such as a CSTR and a distillation column case studies. The deep insight into the dynamics of operating conditions that change in time allows the definition of a new switchability index able to describe the relationship between dynamic and steady state performances from a flexibility point of view.

This additional indicator provided to the decision maker resulted to be a quick and effective tool to carry out a more conscious design choice. Beside allowing a more reliable equipment sizing, it enables the comparison between different control strategies as well as different tuning methodologies and the identification of the optimal ones related to different flexibility ranges.

Furthermore, this innovative indicator results suitable to be exploited in a future perspective for the optimization of startup and shutdown procedures.

过去几年，灵活的运营设计是过程工程的主要挑战之一。但是，即使考虑到设计阶段的不确定性，绝大多数研究工作也仅涉及稳态条件，而忽略了从标称状态到扰动状态过渡期间的系统行为。实际上，仅考虑过程动态，即过程控制配置，才能获得最终的设计验证。

然后，这项研究工作将对简单和更复杂的系统进行动态灵活性评估，例如CSTR和蒸馏塔案例研究。对随时间变化的运行条件动态的深入了解允许定义新的可切换性指数，该指数能够从灵活性的角度描述动态和稳态性能之间的关系。

提供给决策者的这个附加指标最终成为执行更有意识的设计选择的一种快速有效的工具。除了允许更可靠的设备选型外，它还可以比较不同的控制策略和不同的调整方法，并确定与不同灵活性范围相关的最佳方法。

此外，该创新指标的结果适合将来用于优化启动和关闭程序的方面。