Abstract:
In this work, a user-freindly software for the design of heat exchanger network was developed. Pinch technology was employed as a tool to create a set of heat exchanger networks with minimum energy/exergy losses whilst the final decision on the most optimal network was decided through the economical consideration. The software also included the option for only modificating the existing network in which the economical analysis would take into account only the changes occurred in the network. The North Bangkok power plant was employed as the model system for this study. It was found that the efficiency of the heat exchagner network from this power plant was lower than the designed value. Few possible causes of this inefficiency, were bad insulation sealing problem, and improper design of heat exchanger network. The analysis suggest that the inappropriate design was the main cause for this problem. This was possible because it might be difficult to maintain designed conditions in actual working situation. Further investigation revealed that the actual ΔT min should be higher than the designed value in order not to allow energy and exergy losses due to the heat transfer through pinch point. The appropriate ΔT min, therefore, should be thoroughly analysed to ensure the lowest level of energy/exergy losses in this heat exchanger network. Moreover, this work investigated the possibility in reducing exergy loss by adjusting operating conditions of external energy source/sink. It was shown that the exergy loss could be lowered by minimizing the temperature of heat source above pinch point and maximinzing the temperature of heat sink below pinch point.