Computational Economy in Process Engineering

Process design involves many calculations like simulation, vessel sizing, heat exchanger rating and tray rating. These calculations often involve lengthy solutions, repetitive runs and sometimes untractable convergence. To avoid this complexities, this paper explores on the concept of "Computational Economy" to put in place a practically shortened calculation time. This concept basically applies a paradigm that for certain process engineering calculations, there would be first, an excel-based program to estimate major inputs to various softwares and after which the values are tabulated to avoid using the same values over and over again. In applying this method, circuitous and repetitive calculations are avoided and the optimal values are thus obtained.

Key Words: computational economy, repetitive calculations, excel-based program