Improve shell and tube heat exchangers design by hybrid differential evolution and ant colony optimization technique

Abstract

ABSTRACTBecause of sheer large numbers of shell and tube heat exchanger in any chemical process industry, small improvement in their design strategies offers big saving opportunities. Traditional design approaches are based on iterative procedures that gradually change the design and geometric parameters until given heat duty and set of geometric and operational constraints are satisfied. Although well proven, this kind of approach is time consuming and may not explore the feasible solution space fully. The present study explores the use of non‐traditional optimization technique called hybrid differential evolution and ant colony optimization technique, for design optimization of shell and tube heat exchangers from economic point of view. The optimization procedure involves the selection of the major geometric parameters such as tube diameters, tube length, baffle spacing, number of tube passes, tube layout, type of head, baffle cut, and so on, and minimization of total annual cost is considered as design target. The methodology takes into account the geometric and operational constraints typically recommended by design codes. Three different case studies are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of proposed algorithm. The hybrid differential evolution and ant colony optimization method lead to a design of a heat exchanger with a reduced cost of heat exchanger as compare to cost obtained by previously reported genetic algorithms approach. © 2013 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.