Optimal synthesis of flexible heat-exchanger networks
Systematic procedures for the synthesis and design of heat exchanger networks (HEN) have been under study for some 20 years. Progress has been made towards synthesizing networks with maximum energy recovery (MER) and minimum number of units (MNU) which exhibit local minima with respect to the investment cost. A systematic, but ultimately heuristic, procedure is described which, beginning with an initial feasible MNU/MER network, generates a sequence of such networks with successively improving annual cost. Unpinched problems were studied and then extensions which handle pinched problems with multiple subnetworks are presented. The key steps in the procedure consist of path tracing/list processing constructions that allow development of networks which are in some sense adjacent to the initial network while retaining the MER and MNU features. For heat exchanger networks which are required to accommodate multiple-periods of operation, feasible networks are synthesized at each period and then these networks are combined to form a feasible super network. The super network guarantees MER at each period and features MNU. For the general problem with uncertain parameters, all the flexible networks which can cope with the uncertainties are enumerated to generate the flexible minimum cost network after a flexible network is obtained from an MNU/MER network synthesized at the nominal parameters.
- Research Organization:
- Purdue Univ., Lafayette, IN (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 5294517
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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