ASPEN evaluation

Costing and economic evaluation programs also form part of some of the commercial process design packages such as the ICARUS program which is available from Aspen Tech, see Chapter 4, Table 4.1. 

Many aspects of a process can be evaluated with a chemical process flowsheet program such as Aspen. These programs handle mass balances and heat loads on each component with great accuracy. Separation components can also be handled accurately as long as they are rather straightforward. Cost databases also exist on these programs that allow rapid costing of many components. 

ASPEN acquired ICARUS in 2000 and developed Process Evaluator based on Questimate that is used for conceptual design, known as front-end loading (FEL). More information on FEE and valueimproving process (VIP) is found later in Sec. 9. Basic and detailed estimates are coupled with a business decision framework in ASPEN-TECH ICARUS 2000. 

Lawless, H.T. and Heymann, H. 1998. Sensory Evaluation of Food, Principles and Practices. Chapman Hall, New York (now vended by Aspen Publishers). 

Wooley, R. and Ibsen, K. (2000), Rapid Evaluation of Research Proposals Using Aspen Plus, presentation at Aspen World 2000, February, 4-7, Orlando, FL. 

An indepth evaluation of the fFeld was afforded by the ASPEN project at MIT sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy. The project was started June 1, 1976 and is entitled, "Computer-Aided Industrial Process Modeling". Its quarterly and annual reports are available from the National Technical Information Service ( ). 

A major development effort has been underway at M.I.T. from 1976 to 1979 to develop a next-generation process simulator and economic evaluation system named ASPEN (Advanced System for Process ENgineering). The 150,000-line computer program will simulate the flowsheet of a proposed or operating plant. In addition to calculating detailed heat and material balances,... 

ASPEN can also provide preliminary estimates of capital and operating costs and economic viability. The project is funded by the Department of Energy which will use ASPEN to evaluate process alternatives for fossil energy conversion. 

The final measure of merit of a given process is the profitability of the business venture required for its implementation. The purpose of the ASPEN Cost Estimation and Economic Evaluation System is to calculate the profitability of the simulated process. This requires calculation of the total required capital investment and the annual operating expenses. 

As with the rest of ASPEN, the cost estimation and economic evaluation system will be modular in design there will be one program module for each equipment class, and it will be easy for users to add their own costing modules. 

The feasibility of the above setup can be evaluated by simulation with Aspen Plus [19]. The RD column is built-up as a reboiled stripper followed by a condenser and a three-phase flash, with organic phase refluxed to column. The result is that only 3 to 5 reactive equilibrium stages are necessary to achieve over 99% conversion. The stripping zone may be limited at 2-3 stages, while the rectification zone has 1-2 stages. 

The material balance from Problem 3-6 and either ASPEN PLUS or CHEMCAD-III computer software is used to develop the energy balance around each piece of equipment in the ethylene separation section. For example, around distillation column, C-601, the computer program establishes the heat content 6f streams 533, 602, and 603 above a selected datum plane. The distillation calculation indicates the flow rates of the oveiiiead and bottoms streams. The reflux and reboil then indicate the flow rates of the streams that are returned to the column and permits evaluation of the condenser and reboiler duties. In kW " this pan be expressed as... 

For final evaluation of the biomass hydrogasification concept (proof of principle), it is important to integrate the experimental results, within the developed ASPEN model. 

Instructions on loading data from a process simulation are given in the Aspen ICARUS Process Evaluator User s Guide (AspenTech, 2002a). When a simulator report file is loaded, IPE generates a block-flow diagram with each unit operation of the simulation shown as a block. These blocks must then be mapped to Icarus project components (pieces of equipment or bulk items). 

Aspentech. (2002a) Aspen ICARUS Process Evaluator User s Guide (Aspen Technology Inc.). 

In this paper, we present a detailed process analysis of the Cu-Cl cycle as a potential alternative of the S-I cycle. Thermodynamic feasibility of the reactions involved in tliis cycle has been evaluated by HSC Chemistry 5.11 (commercially available thermodynamic database software). Simulation flowsheet has been developed by using chemical analysis simulator ASPEN PLUS 12.1. 

After the first version of the framework was implemented, the integrator between FBW and Aspen Plus has been reimplemented to evaluate the framework. 

CHEOPS obtains this setup file in XML format from ModKit-l-. Tool wrappers are started according to this XML file. The input files required for the modeling tools Aspen Plus and gPROMS are obtained from the model repository ROME. CHEOPS applies a sequential-modular simulation strategy implemented as a solver component because all tool wrappers are able to provide closed-form model representations. The iterative solution process invokes the model evaluation functionality of each model representation, which refers to the underljdng tool wrapper to invoke the native computation in the modeling tool the model originated from. Finally, the results of all stream variables are written to a Microsoft Excel table when the simulation has terminated. 

Based on these requirements, an early version of the integrator framework (cf. Subsect. 3.2.2) has been implemented [27, 251]. It was used to realize a first integrator tool between simulation models in Aspen Plus and process flow diagrams in Comos PT (cf. Subsect. 3.2.5). Innotec contributed the wrapper, connecting the framework to Comos PT, and evaluated early prototypes. The final prototypes of the framework and the integrator were limited in functionality and could not easily be adapted to integrate other documents. Nevertheless, they served as proof of concept for our integration approach. 

MJ Rocheleau, BB Sithole, LH Allen, S Iverson, R Earrell, Y Noel. Eungal treatment of aspen chips for wood resin reduction A laboratory evaluation. J Pulp Pap Sci 24(2) 37-42, 1998. 

The sequences identified by heuristics (Table 7.26) are evaluated by simulation with Aspen Plus using short cut model DSTWU, based on the Underwood method for minimum reflux. In all cases the initial mixture is at 6 bar and 300 K. The pressure in all columns is also at six bar. No intermediate heat exchangers are considered. The thermodynamic option is ideal, based only on vapour pressure data. The measure for total vapour is the reboiler duty. 

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