Publication details

Title	A conceptual programming approach for the design of flexible HENs
Document Type	Article
Year	2000
Authors	Tantimuratha, L., Asteris, G., Antonopoulos, D.K., Kokossis, A.C.
Source	Computer Aided Chemical Engineering, vol.8, no.C, p.967-972
Abstract	A conceptual tool is presented to address the flexibility and operability objectives for heat exchanger networks. Previous work addressed the variations in the process parameters (stream temperatures and flow-rates) either on the basis of a fixed structure or with modelling considerations in the synthesis superstructure. The approach presents a screening model to accommodate considerations ahead of design. The new development is essentially a targeting tool based on the Area Target Model that is a part of the Hypertarget methodology of Briones and Kokossis (1999a, b, c). The targets accommodate for an early pre-processing of matches and assess implications due to parameter variations. The feasibility targets provide ahead of design information on the costs incurred due to the variations. Flexibility targets assess the ability of the system to handle variations for different driving forces. The potential of the matches to handle variations can be further exploited with superstructure schemes. However, the optimisation of these schemes (as NLP problems) would still require extensive and difficult formulations to embed the process variations. Such a crude approach would not be practical or useful to apply to industrial size problems. The paper instead proposes a systematic algorithmic procedure that converges to flexible networks at the expense of only a minor set of additional constraints. Examples are presented to illustrate the approach, explain its ability to assess the impact of variations and prove the ease of its use in real-size problems. © 2000 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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