Flash Evaporation: Modelling and Constraint Formulation

The flash evaporation process has received growing recent interest in the agro-industry, particularly for the post-harvest treatment of grapes. This paper is devoted to the design and the optimization of a two-stage flash evaporator. An embodiment design approach of this process based on constraint satisfaction problem-solving techniques is presented. The aim is to perform the identification and the constraint formulation of the process model, especially the coupling between the two-stage evaporation chamber and the high and low pressures condensers. As an application, the functioning of a flash evaporator is studied using flow rates and temperatures defined on real number intervals. The problem is treated by a CSP solver involving the global physical model of the two-stage flash evaporator and the functional requirements. The analysis has been validated by several experimentations performed on a flash evaporator for the treatment of vintage and leads to a decision support system.