Debottlenecking of Heat Exchanger Networks with Fixed Pressure Drops (l.Targeting)

Retrofit of Heat Exchanger Networks for energy saving
and/or debottlenecking is one of important aspects of
process engineering. Pinch Technology, as the most
efficient tool for the analysis of these networks, has been
applied to hundreds of such projects and shown
satisfactory results. However, all the existing methods for
debottlenecking, using Pinch Technology, are either
based on assumed heat transfer coefficients or corrected
ones on the bas is of revised conditions. This usually
causes problems in the plant hydro dynamic system, when
pressure drop constraints are present. In this paper the
new area algorithm, which is based on fixed stream
pressure drops and has previously been used in energy
saving retrofits, is incorporated into de bottlenecking
procedure and a new targeting method is introduced. The
method is then applied to a Crude Oil Distillation Unit ,
with 20% increase in throughput, and the results are discussed.