Читать книгу Profit Maximization Techniques for Operating Chemical Plants - Sandip K. Lahiri - Страница 75

To date, traditional methodology has been followed when designing a new process equipment. In the traditional method, equipment is designed based on its functionality. Cost is not taken as an objective function and minimization of the total cost is never taken as a design target in the traditional designing method. A moderate sized chemical plant uses 100 heat exchangers, distillation columns, reactors, etc., and minimization of their total cost, i.e both capital and operating costs, can be considered as a potential area to greatly increase profits. Cost minimization based on new design methodology can be applied during the grassroots design time and huge savings can be obtained. With the advent of commercial steady‐state simulators (started around the mid‐1980s) process equipment design took a giant leap forward and computer software/simulators marketed by Aspen, Hysis, and Pro‐II have been extensively used by designers around the world. With the faster computer, it is now possible to check billions of design options for a single piece of equipment and the lowest cost design can be finally selected. In this step a new stochastic optimization‐based methodology is developed for process equipment design. This new methodology uses minimization of the total cost as the design target while obeying all operational, safety constraints and equipment limitations. Various stochastic optimization algorithms are used to search the entire feasible space and find out the most cost‐effective design.