Abstract
Multi-stream heat exchanger (MHEX) is an important equipment to recover cold energy in air separation units (ASU). Multiple streams are designed to exchange heat simultaneously in this equipment. Modelling and simulation of MHEX is an essential step for operational optimization for an air separation process. In the MHEX of an ASU, some streams are designed to enter or leave from a certain layer in the middle section, which increases the complexity of modeling the MHEX. In this paper, an equation oriented (EO) modelling method for complex MHEX is proposed. By considering the structural feature, the complex MHEX is decomposed into several bundles. In each bundle, all streams leave and enter from two ends. A regression model is used to describe the relation among the flowrates, inlet temperatures, and outlet temperatures of the stream in a bundle. The overall model can be solved in an EO mode by lumping the multi-bundle models together. The proposed modelling method is demonstrated with a large number of plant data from a commercial 20000Nm3/h internal compressed ASU. The results show that the developed model can well predict the operation of the MHEX without knowing the detailed information of the internal structure.
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