Heat exchanger networks for petroleum fractionation units handling crudes of different density

The problem of designing crude fractionation units is not only a distillati on design. They have the added complexity that they should be able to proce ss different types of crude at different times. These crudes may vary in de nsity from heavy to light. This paper presents a summary of a recently pres ented rigorous methodology to design such multipurpose plant. First, a targ eting procedure implemented using a commercial simulator is presented. The design of a heat exchanger network that will take advantage of the flexibil ity in the targets follows. Extensions to well-known heat exchanger network synthesis models (e.g. transshipment) to address this target flexibility a re presented.