Patent ID: 8116918

Claim:
A method to synthesize a grass-roots heat exchanger network for a process or cluster of processes having a plurality of hot process streams to be cooled and a plurality of cold process streams to be heated and to identify optimal heat exchanger network topology, the method comprising the steps of: synthesizing a plurality of heat exchanger network designs for a process comprising a plurality of process streams, each of the plurality of heat exchanger network designs synthesized according to a corresponding different one of a plurality of heat exchanger network process variations schemes, each heat exchanger network exchanger network process variations scheme including a set of process stream supply attribute values each separately associated with a different one of the plurality of process streams and having a level of supply attribute value feasibility being different from the level of supply attribute value feasibility for each other of the plurality of heat exchanger network process variations schemes; determining capital and operating costs associated with employing a first heat exchanger network process variations scheme on a first heat exchanger network design of the plurality of heat exchanger network designs; determining capital and operating costs associated with employing a second heat exchanger network process variations scheme on a second heat exchanger network design of the plurality of heat exchanger network designs; applying a supply attribute value range of variation of one of the process streams of the plurality of process streams according to the second heat exchanger network process variations scheme defining a second supply attribute value range of variation to the supply attribute for the one of the process streams for the first heat exchanger network design defining a first supply attribute value range of variation to thereby identify a cost impact of an associated change in target temperature thereof resulting from application of the second supply attribute value range of variation thereto; and determining a process-cost-impact of a deviation in target temperature range of variation for one or more of the process streams for the first heat exchanger network design responsive to application of the second supply attribute value range of variation to the supply attribute of the one of the process streams for the first heat exchanger network design to thereby determine when the first heat exchanger network design provides a more optimal heat exchanger network design than the second heat exchanger network design and when the first heat exchanger network process variations scheme correspondingly represents a more optimal flexibility index.