Synthesis of Heat Exchanger Networks Using Combination of Stochastic and Deterministic Algorithms

The optimization of the utility consumption (steam and cooling water) is an important part for the optimization of process operating cost. To this end, the heat exchanger networks (HEN) are investigated in a process manner. Different approaches are presented for the synthesis of HEN where stochastic algorithms have received more attention recently. In this paper, a combination of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)-- as a stochastic algorithm-- and Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm-- as a deterministic algorithm-- are used for the optimization of heat exchanger networks. ACO was presented originally for problems with discrete variables, and it is used here in the same way. To prove the effectiveness of the presented method, two case studies are undertaken, and their results are compared with that of other methods.