ESTIMATION OF THE INSTALLED COST OF HEAT-EXCHANGER NETWORKS

Much progress has been made in the development of synthesis methods for heat exchanger networks through the use of targeting procedures. Such advances include the development of pinch technology, the application of mathematical programming techniques and the use of the A* heuristic search procedure based on artificial intelligence by the present authors. Networks of substantially different topologies can be produced by the alternative synthesis procedures, but the methods used for cost estimation typically rely heavily on a simple area exponent calculation. As substantial capital costs are incurred for piping a simplified method is proposed which does allow for piping costs and so may be used to discriminate more accurately between alternative networks. The use of this procedure is illustrated by using some networks from published problems.