Design Guidelines for
Utilizing Simulation Software
in the Field
Karl Kolmetz
KLM Technology Group
Asit Mardikr
Cal Depew
Invensys SimSci-Esscor
Dr Wai Kiong Ng
Tau Yee (Ron) Lim
Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences
Phaik Sim Cheah
Titan Petrochemicals
Prepared for,
Invensys SimSci-Esscor Users Conference
Swissotel Le Concorde Hotel
Bangkok, Thailand
7th – 9th December 2005
Introduction
Process simulation is a powerful chemical engineering tool that has widespread use in the chemical processing industry. Utilized correctly it can help design, optimize and troubleshoot process units, when you follow guidelines developed from the fundamental basics of chemical engineering. It is important to remember that machine calculations are for the purpose of improving only the speed of the calculation. Despite rapid progress in computational speed and user friendly interfaces, understanding the rules and limitations of simulation tools is still a pre-requisite to obtain simulated results close to those measured in the field. The engineer needs to supply the correct input data, interpret errors that occurred and make critical judgment on the results. Mastering these techniques often requires substantial field experience and practice.
Accumulating such knowledge in form of design guidelines can help young engineers to ramp up their learning curves. Working steps like correct selection of actual field efficiencies, choosing appropriate vapor and liquid equilibrium (VLE) data, feed modeling, and analysis of actual hydraulic behavior all have a strong influence on the accuracy of the model’s results. Developing guidelines for each of these steps is very important to a practicing engineer.