Debottlenecking of Heat Exchanger Networks Designed Using PDM

Retrofit design of heat exchanger networks using Pinch technology is mainly applied for two reasons; improvement of a network for energy saving as well as improvement of a network with new flow rate in its process streams. The latter is called Retrofit for Debottlenecking of the Heat exchanger Network. All networks about which retrofit design have been studied so far follow methods rather than those in pinch technology. Regarding changes in process industries to respond to market design, factories have to expand their throughput, so pinch technology as a strong tool can be used in such situations, as there would be new changes in process structure along with undesired restrictions. It, also, can be true for networks the grassroots design of which was based on pinch technology for a premier throughput. In this research, we considered a heat exchanger network designed using Pinch Technology Method whose throughput is going to increase. After investigating the conditions of the network and predicting what changes would happen, the optimum method was introduced to target the final results of the design step in a way that not only network restrictions will be overcome, but also will network be able to work with the economical conditions. Finally, a case study of an Aromatic plant was applied to illustrate targeting and design step results. These results verify the proposed method of Pinch Technology in the retrofit design for debottlenecking of heat exchanger networks designed by PDM.