Equipment selection heuristics

The initial aim of the procedure is to generate a reasonable base case design that can be used for preliminary economic evaluation of the process. This can subsequently be optimized and/or compared with any process alternatives that are identified. The complete process is always considered at each decision level, but additional fine detail is added to the structure of the flowsheet at any stage. Established heuristics and equipment selection procedures are used together with new process synthesis insights to guide each flowsheet decision. 

Table 10. Heuristics for equipment selection for detergents manufacture.

Flowsheet development involves the selection of the equipment and the interconnects that integrate the equipment into a working system. Two approaches are used for the development of the flowsheet mathematically based programming and the use of heuristics and evolutionary development. 

For batch plants where several products are manufactured in small to medium quantities the same piece of equipment may be required to perform several different separations. In such circumstances a good deal of heuristic information and detailed knowledge of a wide variety of separators is needed in order to produce a shortlist of equipment. However, a sophisticated selection is readily performed using FDS without a need for user expert knowledge. 

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