HEAT-EXCHANGER NETWORK DESIGN FOR MULTIPURPOSE BATCH PLANTS

A mathematical programming approach to the design of heat exchanger ne tworks for multipurpose batch plants is presented, aiming to determine the minimum total cost network while satisfying given product demands . Only the direct mode of heat integration is considered. The plant is assumed to operate in a zero-wait overlapping mode, where each produc t must pass through a subset of the equipment stages, and production i s organized in a series of long campaigns. The formulation presented t akes account of the additional scheduling complications that arise out of energy integration between different products in the same campaign . The overall formulation results in a mixed integer linear programmin g problem that can be solved to global optimality using standard techn iques.