Synthesis of Heat Exchanger Networks Considering Stream Splitting and the Rigorous Calculation of the Heat Transfer Coefficient According to the Bell Delaware Method

摘要

On the context of cost minimization and maximum profit, connected to the interest about the preservation of the environment we live in, the minimization of energy consumption in a chemical industry is placed according to the new market trends. The concept of Pinch Analysis fits in this new scenery as a tool to define the least quantity of hot and cold utilities, as well as the number of heat exchangers to be used in the plant, in order to use the energy of the own process for the many heat exchange operations going on this process. On the present work, a software was developed to work with the heuristics of Pinch Analysis and with the concept of Problem Table, to detect the Pinch temperatures. This software defines a Heat Exchanger Network (HEN) for the process and consider the stream splitting taking into account the economic evaluation of this procedure which focus on the maximum energy recovery compared with the results obtained for the case of not splitting the streams. This analysis is based on the calculation of the minimum heat transfer area and the cost of the equipment which are compared with the costs involving hot and cold utilities usage. Another aspect that was taken into account was the calculation of the heat transfer coefficient according to the Bell Delaware method for the shell side and the comparison between the results obtained by using its value.