International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Development

Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijeted/ijeted_index.htm

Issue 4, Vol.2 (March 2014)

ISSN 2249-6149

A REVIEW ON SIMULATION OF HEAT

EXCHANGER USING ASPEN PLUS SOFTWARE
D. Sushmitha#1Pramod kumar #2
#1

Lecturer, Center for Biotechnology, IST, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University,

HYDERABAD, 500085, INDIA, 8886355677.
#2

Professor, Center for Chemical Science Technology, IST, Jawaharlal Nehru

Technological University, HYDERABAD, 500085, INDIA, 9392247165.

ABSTRACT:
Insufficient cooling of process stream indirectly effects in the performance of any chemical
process. So designing, simulation and optimization of Heat exchangers are very important in
most of the chemical engineering process.Now a daysso many softwares exists for heat
exchanger designing, simulation and optimization purposes.Present studyfocus on simulation
of a heat exchanger using Aspen plus software.Two heater blocks are used to decrease the
outlet of hot stream to less than 70F from 140F, using Aspen plus from HCURVE.
Key words:Heat exchanger, Simulation, Aspen Plus, HCURVES.
Corresponding Author: D. Sushmitha

INTRODUCTION:
Business concern continues to simulate chemical process for a better performance. Heat
exchangers are used to transfer heat between a process stream and a utility stream, with a
minimum energy requirement. Some process engineering systems utilize Heat exchanger
network synthesis for controlling the cost of energy for a process.
These are in turn divided into sequential and simultaneous synthesis. These are Evolutionary
design techniques such as pinch design technique, dual temperature techniques, pseudo-pinch
techniques, and block decomposition techniques, as sequential techniques. And simultaneous
techniques are Mathematical Programming techniques based on the continuous and integer
linear programs. They are primarily Mixed Integer Non Linear Programming (MINLP)[2]
Simulation of heat exchangers can also done by artificial neural networks.[12] this project
provides thermal system designs with a artificial neural networks for predicting heat
exchangers behaviour, providing also adaptive characteristics to the model that can be easily
inserted in a closed loop control scheme. Another paper on Modelling and Simulation of the
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International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Development

Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijeted/ijeted_index.htm

Issue 4, Vol.2 (March 2014)

ISSN 2249-6149

Heat Transfer Behaviour of a Shell-and-Tube Condenser for aModerately High-Temperature

Heat Pump[13]
The present case study is on simulation of a exchanger using Aspen. These simulation
techniques seek to find the optimal solution without decomposition of theproblem. Under
Aspen there are several other modules especially for exchanger analysis.
Aspen Tasc+ is Combination of the best of Aspen HTFS and Aspen B-JAC with Aspen
Techs New Application for Design, Checking (Rating)and Simulation of Shell and Tube
Heat Exchangers. It Designs the most economical exchanger for your application Easily
plug your shell and tube designs into either of AspenTechs steady-state simulators so you
can accurately evaluate heat exchanger performance in the context of your overall process
Design.For designing of various exchanges especially Aspen EDR (Exchanger Design and
Rating) is used.
ASPEN PLUS SIMULATION:
This review paper along with an case study is done for better understanding of simulation of
an exchanger using aspen soft ware.The data is extracted from the real process to enhance the
existing process in an industry. Due to insufficient cooling of the process stream the
productivity of the distillation unit is decreased. Here we take Processstreams asfuel oil,
saturated water and then utility stream of ethylene glycol are used for Aspen plus simulation
analysis. Open a new file in the Aspen and select heater block from heat exchanger ikon
appeared in the down row besides several ikons like mixed streams, mixers splitters,
separators, exchangers, columns, reactors. Similarly click another heater block and place side
by side in the new file. Naming of the heater blocks as block 1 and 2, and streams as hot feed
in and cold feed in to each block inlet streams respectively.

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International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Development

Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijeted/ijeted_index.htm

Issue 4, Vol.2 (March 2014)

ISSN 2249-6149

After completion of flow sheet, we give other information such as run type, property method,
and stream data.Here we userun type as the flow sheet in the global sheet and property
method as Wilson method. Then click next to select the process streams and utility stream in
the flow sheet. After selection of streams then Wilson property method was selected.Next
specifications of the streams like state variables and flow rates of hot as well as cold streams
respectively are given. Inlet temperature of cold streams as 40F and flow rate as 15000 lb/hr.
Fuel oil inlet temperature as 140F and flow rates of fuel oil and saturated water as 200 and
1800lb/hr respectively.
Block specifications given as 70Fis therequired temperature to which the hot stream has to
be reduced below that value. Next specifications for second block is taken as
0 psi
(negligible pressure) for pressure and temperature column is kept blank, return to the process
file and add heat stream between two blocks, with this the specification of the block is
completed.
Check all the given input, on left side of the window, and then click on start to start
simulation. The specified things are highlighted with blue colour in the left side of the
column. As shown below.

The simulation is passed for some time to see the outlet temperature of the cold
stream. Click on the outlet stream of the second heater block a new sheet consisting of the all
the information about that stream is displayed temperature of the cold stream outlet shown is
54.5F.

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International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Development

Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijeted/ijeted_index.htm

Issue 4, Vol.2 (March 2014)

ISSN 2249-6149

Heat duty can be seen for the block from results summary, for the first block the heat duty is
-130.048 kcal/hr.
Heat curves can be seen for hot and cold streams, click on the heater block 1 in the flow sheet
a window with all information of heater block 1 will appear.Click on the HCURVE under
block 1, in results. Click on new,to create HCURVES. Then select heat duty in Set up then
click start observe the results. Results consists of point number, status, heat duty pressure,
temperature.
Select the first Column consists of no of points and then go to picture ikon in the top and
select as x-axis, next select the temperature column as y-axis, go to pictures, and then yaxis.return to the picture add new curve new window will appear with the block 2, select it.
Do same for the second block,HCURVES. Then select display result in the pictures.

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International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Development

Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijeted/ijeted_index.htm

Issue 4, Vol.2 (March 2014)

ISSN 2249-6149

The blue line in the plot represents temperature profile of the first heater block and green is
for temperature profile of the second heater block. The temperature range of the y-axis is
increased, so that the accurate temperature range to which hot fluid can have a minimum
temperature i.e from fig it is shown as approximately70-54.5F

.
The objective of this study is to minimize the temperature of the hot stream. By
changing the Specification of the out let temperature of the first block as 54.5F, again heat
curves are drawn (procedure as above), it is shown as 58.5F.

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International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Development

Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijeted/ijeted_index.htm

Issue 4, Vol.2 (March 2014)

ISSN 2249-6149

CONCLUSION:
This review has highlighted the importance of simulation using aspen with an
case study. The simulation of an heat exchanger is done on the Aspen. The out let of the cold
stream temperature is found as 54.5F, simulation is done by specifying the temperature of
the hot stream to less than 70F Finally a minimum temperature to which a hot stream can be
brought is 58.5F got from the HCRUVES.
REFERENCE:
[1]. Lang, Jim. Design Procedure for Heat Exchangers on AspenPlus Software Design
manual. June 1999.
[2]. Lang, Jim. Boiling Design on Aspen-Plus. Design manual. July 1999.
[3].Aspen Plus Simulator 10.0-1. User Interface (1998).
[4]. Coulson and Richardson. Chemical Engineering Fluid Flow, Heat Transfer and Mass
Transfer. Volume 1, 5th ed., Butterworth and Heinemann, 1996.
[5]. Geankoplis, Christie J. Transport Processes and Unit Operations, 3rd ed., Prentice
Hall, 1993.
[6]. Incropera and DeWitt. Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer. 4th ed., John Wiley
and Sons, 1996.
[7]. Perry, P.H. and Green, D. Perrys Chemical Engineering Handbook. 7th ed.,
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1997.
[8] A.M. Law, Simulation Modelling & Analysis (4th Ed.), McGraw-Hill, London, 2007.
[9] Using Simulation Modelling to Improve the Performance of Chemical Engineering .
Processes: Part 1 Industrial Heat Exchanger Network Analysis Int. J. Pure Appl. Sci. .
Technol., 12(1) (2012), pp. 39-48.
[10] P.J. Sanchez, Fundamentals of simulation modelling, Engineering Management Review,.
. IEEE,37(2009), 23-23.

[11] Condenser Design on Aspen-Plus Software(Heat Exchanger design with a phase . . . .

.change)Author: Jim Lang (SDSM&T, 2000).
[12] Simulation and control of heat exchangers using artificial neural networks.
[13] Modelling and Simulation of the Heat TransferBehaviour of a Shell-and-Tube.
Condenser for aModerately High-Temperature Heat Pump.

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