The Efficiency of Plate-Type Heat Exchangers: Integrated Computational Optimization Experiment

Abstract

This scientific paper gives recommendations on the development of the algorithms for computational optimization experiments using the algorithms and OPHEX programs developed by the authors. The following key recommendations have been suggested: 1. Recommendations on the order and sorting interval of independent variables. These recommendations were worked out using the data of the ranging of independent variables in terms of their influence on optimization results. The order of influence of these variables for different types of equipment has been given. 2. Recommendations on the choice of optimal media rates. The values of optimal rates of heat carriers used at the present time for manual and automatic calculations were obtained long ago and therefore these fail to take into account changed economic factors and require more accurate definition. The data of multiple calculations were generalized and the recommendations on the selection of optimal rates for heat carriers were worked out taking into consideration current prices and their change with an increase in energy and material prices was predicted. 3. Recommendations on the possibility of simplification of the models for some calculations with no significant loss in the general computation accuracy. This section gives the conclusions on the degree of influence produced by the individual parts of computation on its general results and optimization results on the whole. We came to the conclusions based on the data of computational experiments. The recommendations given can be included in the form of heuristics into the optimization algorithms of the plate-type heat exchanges that considerably reduces the dimension of optimization problem and allows us to increase its efficiency at the same machine resource.