Interfacing heat exchanger network synthesis and detailed heat exchanger design

Current heat exchanger network synthesis targeting and design procedures involve the use of assumed stream heat transfer coefficients. However, during detailed heat exchanger design, allowable pressure drops are often the most critical factors. The result can be big differences between the exchanger sizes and costs anticipated by the network designer and those realised by the exchanger designer. This in turn prejudices any optimisation attempted at the network design stage. In the paper it is shown how allowable pressure drop can be used as a basis of network design and consistency between expectation and realisation achieved