DESIGN OF A HEAT-EXCHANGER NETWORK FOR A SYSTEM OF BATCH VESSELS

The paper considers a heat integration problem in a system of hot/cold batch vessels available in a given time interval, H, repeated several times in the planning period. The aim of the study is to propose a de sign procedure which exploits the system heat integration potential an d ensures the desired vessel final temperatures at minimum total cost. It is assumed that matching between different pairs of hot/cold vesse ls is carried out in sequential subintervals within H including heatin g and cooling supplied by external utilities. In order to characterise the heat exchange equipment required for a given system, a generalise d engineering parameter called conditionally Power of the Heat Exchang er (PHE) representing the basic heat exchange impact parameters, is in troduced. The heat exchanger network design problem is formulated as a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINP) task under constraints of heat integration feasibility, order and duration of matching, install ed PHE, external utility requirement and required temperatures. The ap proach is illustrated by an example.