Estimating equipment

As an example of this technique, the estimated equipment costs for a large coal gasification project have been correlated and programmed for a computer. Thus, it is vei7 easy to get the cost of any one piece, or of many pieces of equipment, for a coal gasification or hydrocarbon processing project once the specification sheets are completed. 

Estimated Equipment manhours (including checking) Total Estimated Job Process =--------------3-----------... 

Recent cost data are included for estimating equipment and overall plant costs. 

Many different types of cost indexes are published regularly. Some of these can be used for estimating equipment costs others apply specifically to labor, construction, materials, or other specialized fields. The most common of these indexes are the Marshall and Swift all-industry and process-industry equipment indexes, the Engineering News-Record construction index, the Nelsotl-Fatrar refinery construction index, and the Chemical Engineering plant cost index. Table 3 presents a list of values for various types of indexes over the past 15 years. 

Estimate equipment and engineering accounts as shown above. 

The equipment erection hours are rarely more than 7-8% of the total construction hours, and errors in this account will have a very small impact on the total estimated costs. Estimating equipment erection costs as a percentage of the equipment cost is then an acceptable method. 

Three problems must be considered in compiling an up-to-date summary of equipment costs (1) bringing published reference costs up to date (2) estimating equipment costs for equipment or plants of various capacities when the cost data are available for only one capacity (3) estimating installation charges when delivered equipment prices are listed. 

This section is provided in the file Section 16.7.pdf on the CD-ROM that accompanies this book. It introduces Aspen IPE and shows how to estimate equipment sizes, purchase costs, installation costs, and the total permanent investment. Two examples are provided ... 

To estimate equipment sizes and costs using Aspen IPE for a process simulated with ASPEN PLUS, it is necessary to prepare the simulation results for use with Aspen IPE. While this is accomplished in a similar manner for most of the major process simulators, these notes focus on the steps to prepare ASPEN PLUS simulations. For the steps when using the other process simulators, the reader should refer to the Aspen IPE User s Guide (press the Help button in Aspen IPE). 

It is normally necessary to adapt the simulation file in two ways. First, to estimate equipment sizes. Aspen IPE usually requires estimates of mixture properties not needed for the material and energy balance, and phase equilibria calculations performed by the process simulators. For this reason, it is necessary to augment the simulation report files with estimates of mixture properties, such as viscosity, thermal conductivity. 

Mapping Results. After Aspen IPE has mapped and sized the equipment items, it is prudent to check the results, especially for major equipment items such as towers, compressors, and chemical reactors. These items are usually very expensive, and consequently, it is a good practice to estimate equipment sizes independently for comparison with the Aspen IPE results. To view the Aspen IPE results for an equipment item, double click on the item on the IPE Workbook window or on its icon in the Process Flow Diagram. For example, the following component specification form, which contains some of the sizing results, is obtained for the depropanizer tower. 

After the parameters for estimating equipment sizes and the utility parameters are adjusted, and a new steam utility is defined, the simulation units (blocks, modules, or subroutines) are mapped into Aspen IPE. In this case, there is only one distillation unit, Dl, to be mapped. The default mapping results in (1) a tray tower, (2) a shell-and-tube heat exchanger with a fixed tube sheet for the condenser, (3) a horizontal drum for the reflux accumulator, (4) a centrifugal reflux pump, and (5) a kettle reboiler with U tubes. 

Students can use the chapters in Part Three when carrying out their design projects. In this book, most of the information they need is provided for estimating equipment sizes, purchase costs, and operating costs, and for carrying out profitability analyses. 

For the membrane-assisted process evaluation, a 200 ton/day unit was considered together with the costs to modify the Claus reaction chamber by inserting the catalytic tubes. The cost of separation modules, vessels, exchangers and rotating machinery was also added. Table 8.3 reported the estimated equipment costs. For the overall investment cost, a 250% or 2.5 multiplying factor was used, which is commonly adopted for similar estimates. 

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE 21,21 A simple procedure is available to estimate equipment cost from past cost data. The method consists of adjusting the earlier cost data to present values using factors that correct for inflation. A number of such indices are available one of the most conunonly used is the Chemical Engineering Fabricated Equipment Cost Index (FECI), outdated past values of which are listed in Table 21.5. 

By studying Table 3.4. it is apparent that the limiting piece of equipment is the mixing and reaction vessel, and the cycle times can be found from this piece of equipment. To estimate equipment volume, it is necessary to determine the volume of each piece of equipment per unit of product produced. To determine these quantities, descriptions of the method (recipe) for using each piece of equipment for each product must be known. The procedure to estimate the specific volume of the reactor for Process A in Table 3.4 is given in Example 3.8. 

Coordination, group characteristic, 902-903 Copper, equipment cost, 205 Coronella, C. J., 903-905 Corrosion, and construction materials, 375 Corrosive environments, equipment cost, 202-204 Cost estimation. See also Economic analysis, capital costs. See Capital cost estimation, equipment, 19... 

SuperPro Designer estimates equipment cost using built-in cost correlations that are based on data derived from a number of vendors and literature sources. In addition, users have the flexibility to enter their own data and correlations for equipment cost estimation. The fixed capital investment is estimated based on equipment cost using various multipliers, some of which are equipment specific (e.g., installation cost) while others are plant specific (e.g., cost of piping, buildings, etc.). This approach is described in detail in the literatrue [6,142]. The rest of this section provides a summary of the cost analysis results for this example process. Table 15.2 shows the key economic evaluation results for this project. Key assumptions for the economic evaluations include 1) a new production suite will be built and dedicated to the manufacturing of this product 2) the entire direct fixed capital is depreciated linearly over a period of twelve years 3) the project lifetime is 15 years, and 4) 27,000 kg of final product is produced per year. 

---