Using Self-Organizing Maps to Elucidate Patterns among Variables in Simulated Syngas Combustion

Abstract

This study focused on demonstrating the use of a self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm to elucidate patterns among variables in simulated syngas combustion. The work was implemented in two stages: (1) modelling and simulation of syngas combustion under various feed composition and reactor temperature implemented in AspenPlusTM chemical process simulation software, and (2) pattern recognition among variables using SOM algorithm implemented in MATLAB. The varied levels of feed syngas composition and reactor temperature was randomly sampled from uniform distributions using the Morris screening technique creating four thousand eight hundred simulation conditions implemented in the process simulation which consequently produced a multivariate dataset used in the SOM analysis. Results show that cylindrical SOM topology models the dataset at lower quantization error and topographic error as compared to the rectangular SOM topology indicating suitability of the former for variables pattern elucidation for the simulated combustion. Nonetheless, the variables pattern between component planes from rectangular SOM (9 × 28 grid) and those from cylindrical SOM (9 × 28 grid) are almost similar, indicating that either rectangular or cylindrical architectures may be used for variables pattern analysis. The component planes of process variables from trained SOM are a convenient visualization of the trends across all process variables.