A PREDICTIVE TOOL FOR MONITORING, DIAGNOSING AND TREATING HEAT EXCHANGER FOULING

摘要

Heat exchanger fouling exacts a significant economic penalty to chemical manufacturers in terms of lost capacity, energy, equipment replacement and maintenance costs. This paper discusses a systematic approach to develop a real-timeear real-time digital window to continuously detect and predict heat exchanger performance degradation. The architecture developed uses a synergistic blend of first principles models, statistics and expert knowledge to capture fouling trends and provide suitable treatment. The approach is demonstrated on case studies of two industrial heat exchangers.