Week 01 1

Intro 01
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Introduce general Become comfortable
flowsheet simulation and familiar with the
concepts and Aspen Aspen Plus graphical
Plus features user interface

Introduce basic
input required to
run an Aspen Plus
simulation
 "Where do I even begin? Mass balances?
Energy balances? Thermodynamic
properties? Reaction Kinetics?"
Over the past few semesters as a student
you've learned about each of these crucial
topics separately, however, "real world"
situations will require an engineer to
incorporate all of these areas.

INTRODUCTION
 What is flowsheet simulation?
Use of a computer program to quantitatively model the characteristic
equations of a chemical process.

Uses underlying physical relationships

Mass and energy balance
Equilibrium relationships
Rate correlations (reaction and mass/heat transfer)

Predicts
Stream flowrates, compositions, and properties
Operating conditions
Equipment sizes

Introduction 4
 PROCESS MODEL
A process model can be defined as an
engineering system's "blue print."
Maps out the entire system.
Shows one or more inlet streams entering into the system's
first unit operation (i.e., heat exchanger, compressor,
reactor, distillation column, etc.) and continues through the
FLOWSHEETS
process, illustrating all intermediate unit operations and the
interconnecting streams.
The flowsheet also indicates all product streams.
Each stream and unit operation is labelled and identified.
specifies all chemical components of the system from the
CHEMICAL necessary reactants and products, to steam and cooling
COMPONENTS
water.
All unit operations in the process model are kept under
OPERATING particular operating conditions (i.e., temperature, pressure,
CONDITIONS size)
SOUND CONFUSING?
Well can you imagine keeping track of all of this by
hand, then solving all the mass and energy balances,
determining thermodynamic behaviour, and using
reaction kinetics just to determine what size reactor to
use, or how much product you'll achieve?
 Allows the designer to quickly test the performance of
synthesized process flowsheets and provide feedback to the
process synthesis activities.
Can be coordinated with process synthesis to develop optimum
integrated designs.

Minimizes experimental and scale-up efforts.

Explores process flexibility and sensitivity by answering "what-if"

questions.

Quantitatively models the process and sheds insights on

WHY process performance.

SIMULATION? 7
 To solve this problem, we need to perform
Material balance
Energy balance
GENERAL SIMULATION
PROBLEM 8
 Able to create a new Aspen Plus
simulation.

Able to construct flowsheet, including

adding blocks and streams, reconnecting
streams, and breaking/joining streams.

Lesson
Outcomes 9
Rebuild the flowsheet shown above using Aspen Plus.

Task 01 10
 You are now capable to
launch Aspen Plus UI
specify components
specify physical property methods
move from Properties environment to
Simulation environment
construct a flowsheet.

Review 11
 Objective:
Add the process and feed stream conditions to a flow sheet.

T = 200 F
P = 550 psia
Hydrogen: 405
lbmol/hr
Methane: 95 lbmol/hr
Benzene: 95 lbmol/hr
Toluene: 5 lbmol/hr
Question : What is the heat duty of the
block HEATER?

Task 02 12
STATUS INDICATORS 13
 Determine the heat duty that is needed to
heat a stream (1250 kg/s) containing equal
molar of methane and ethane from 20C
and 100 bar to 200C at constant pressure.
Use Peng Robinsons thermodynamics
model.

Task 03 14