Design guidelines for using distillation simulation software in the field

Abstract

Process simulation is a powerful chemical engineering tool that has widespread use in the chemical processing industry. If used correctly, it can help design, optimize and troubleshoot process units, when you follow the guidelines developed from the fundamental basics of chemical engineering. It is important to remember that computer hardware advancements have only improved the speed of the calculation. Despite rapid progress in computational speed and user‐friendly interfaces, understanding the rules and limitations of simulation tools is still a prerequisite to obtain simulated results close to those measured in the field. The engineer must supply the correct input data, interpret errors that occurred and make critical judgment on the results. Mastering these techniques often requires substantial field experience and practice.Accumulating such knowledge in the form of design guidelines helps young engineers to ramp up their learning curves. Working steps like correct selection of actual field efficiencies, choosing appropriate vapor and liquid equilibrium (VLE) methods, feed characterization and analysis of actual hydraulic behavior, have a strong influence on the accuracy of the model's results. Developing guidelines for each of these steps is very important to a practicing engineer. Copyright © 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.