Estimating fluid plants

For the factored estimate a list is made of all pieces of equipment, and the delivered cost of each item is obtained. This could be determined by inquiring from manufacturers, from past records, or from published data. The delivered cost of all the equipment is summed and multiplied by an appropriate factor. According to Lang this factor would be 3.10 for a solids process plant, 3.63 for a solid-fluid plant, and 4.74 for a fluid plant. These factors are referred to as Lang factors. This estimate is often used in the preliminary stages of engineering, but is not extremely accurate. 

For this estimate, the prices of all items on the equipment list except those in the 700 and 800 categories were summed to obtain a 1968 F.O.B. cost of 2,203,000. This was increased by the Ohio sales tax of 4% and then by another 5%, to cover freight costs. This results in a delivered equipment cost of 2,400,000. The Lang factor is between that of a fluids plant and a solid-fluids plant. The value selected was 43. This was updated to 1974, and an 8% factor for waste treatment was added The result is a factored cost estimate of 14,400,000. 

Long Valley in east-central California, the Valles Caldera of north-central New Mexico, and the Yellowstone region of northwestern Wyoming. The sizes of these magma bodies may be in excess of 1000 km of fluid rock at temperatures in excess of 650°C. It has been estimated that only 2 km of magma could provide enough energy to operate a 1000-MW electric power plant for 30 years. 

A multiple-factor method for predesign cost estimating has been put forward by D. H. Allen and R. C. Paffe [Chem. Eng., 82, 142-150 (Mar. 3, 1975)] for fluid-type plants (F) that include some vapor processing. The method requires the following input information ... 

Estimation of fixed capital cost, reference Table 6.1, fluids processing plant ... 

Table 8.3-2 shows heat duties in the different pieces of equipment, and the solvent makeups needed to run the plant, as a function of pressure and temperature in the flash drum, D200. The data reported are computed by assuming efficiencies for heaters and coolers equal to 0.7, and 0.6, respectively, to account for thermal inefficiencies [4]. From analysis in the pilot plant, which is probably more accurate than the results from the process simulator, an accurate estimate was that 20 kW is needed to pump all the fluids in the final plant. 

Use of HTU and K a Data In estimating the size of a commercial gas absorber or liquid stripper it is desirable to have data on the overall mass-transfer coefficients (or heights of transfer units) for the system of interest, and at the desired conditions of temperature, pressure, solute concentration, and fluid velocities. Such data should best be obtained in an apparatus of pilot-plant or semiworks size to avoid the abnormalities of scale-up. Within the packing category, there are both random and ordered (structured) packing elements. Physical characteristics of these devices will be described later. 

PCBs were manufactured in China between 1965 and 1974, and the production was estimated to be 10,0001. This is a minor fraction of the 1.5 million tons of total production worldwide. The major components in the Chinese PCB technical mixtures were tri- to penta-chlorinated congeners (named as PCB3 and PCB5, respectively). PCB3 was mainly used as an additive in paint, and PCB5 was mainly used as dielectric fluid in transformers. Some transformers containing PCBs as dielectric fluids were imported mainly for the steel industry and power plants, but the exact... 

This heat pump moves the heat from the surface of the ocean into its lower depths and in the process recovers some of the energy obtained by the working fluid as its pressure is reduced through a turbine generator. Sea Solar Power Inc. estimates that a 100 mW power plant could be built for 336 million. 

While the evaluations of cost and plant size discussed in the preceding paragraphs have been devoted to fixed bed,systems, the conclusions are valid for all coal gasification techniques. Estimates of fluid bed gasifiers have also been prepared. (2) Unfortunately, insufficient data are available to substantiate the operability and actual productivity which must form the basis for any cost estimate. Using these tentative costs, we find that costs for LBG or MBG might be below 3.00/million Btu. For entrained flow systems, still under development, costs in the below 3.00/million Btu range are estimated. However, actual implementation of these advanced systems or even state-of-the-art... 

In some cases, an estimate of corrosion rate may be gained from chemical analysis of the corrosive fluid. For example, the level of copper ions in the discharge from a desalination plant will indicate the rate of metal loss from the system. 

Supercritical fluid extraction has now found a lot of applications in different fields (polymers, aromas and essential oils, fats, natural products, soil decontamination...) and several production units are operated in agroalimentary (coffee, hop...) and pharmaceutical industries. In order to estimate the economical interest of these applications, technical and economical extrapolation methods have been developed. These methods are dependent of the nature of the extraction and are based on experimental results obtained on pilot plant units. We describe here a general extrapolation procedure, and a case study is presented to illustrate an economical estimation of a supercritical fluid extraction. 

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