Flowsheet modeling in the chemical process industry has traditionally focused on heat and mass balances. In this traditional perspective, flow and mixing related aspects of individual unit operations are often modeled inadequately or neglected completely. Such flowsheet models, while being very useful from a design perspective, can be of diminished value for performance analysis and operational decision making especially when equipment internals/configuration impact performance.
On the other hand, advanced flow models for individual unit operations using tools such as CFD and DEM (discrete element method) have found widespread acceptance in the engineering community over the past decade. However, these models are computationally too expensive to be used directly in conjunction with flowsheet models (the latter typically being orders of magnitude cheaper from a computational perspective). The integration of these two disparate modeling paradigms has been a challenge for the process modeling engineer.
In this presentation, we describe a modeling framework that enables the inclusion of sophisticated flow models into a flowsheeting environment, thus making plant performance studies possible. Case studies will be presented to discuss this technique and its benefits.
See more of this Group/Topical: Southwest Process Technology Conference