The fundamental dynamic behaviour of a middle-vessel continuous distillation column is studied in this paper. The interaction between the middle vessel (MV) design and control parameters is identified by means of a linear analysis. Transfer functions relating the dynamics of the product composition responses to changes in the disturbance inputs and manipulated inputs are derived. The role of the MV holdup and MV level controller gain in altering the product composition responses is identified. It is shown that the MV level controller gain can significantly affect the control performance when feed flow disturbances must be compensated for. However, it has a much lower impact in the control performance when feed composition disturbances need to be rejected; in this case, exploiting the "buffering" effect of the MV is more important for control. The analysis is carried out in detail for a LV control configuration, and is subsequently extended to an "on-demand" DB configuration. Finally, simple guidelines for the choice of the MV level controller gain and MV holdup are provided. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.