Novel application for exergy and thermoeconomic analysis of processes simulated with Aspen Plus®

Abstract

A visual basic application for Microsoft Excel 2007 has been developed as a helpful tool to perform mass, energy, exergy and thermoeconomic (MHBT) calculations during the systematic analysis of energy processes simulated with Aspen Plus®. The application reads an Excel workbook containing three sheets with the matter, work and heat streams results of an Aspen Plus® simulation. The required information from the Aspen Plus® simulation and the algorithm/calculations of the application are described and applied to an Air Separation Unit (ASU). This application helps the designer when MHBT analyses are performed, as it increases the knowledge of the process simulated with Aspen Plus®. It's a valuable tool not only because of the calculations performed, but also because it creates a new Excel workbook where the results and the formulae written on the cells are fully visible and editable. There is free access to the application and it has no protection allowing changes and improvements to be done.

Energetic, exergetic and economic assessment of oxygen production from two columns cryogenic air separation unit

“…Physical properties, composition and exergy of each stream are shown in the Table 10. Results of simulation show a good harmony with available references [8,9].…”

“…❖ A simple simulation of two columns air separation unit is considered in this article. 2011 [8] C. Fu et al…”

Integration of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell in a sugar–ethanol factory: analysis of the efficiency and the environmental profile of the products

“…The input and output data for the SOFC system have been calculated using simulation data by Aspen Plus Ò (Aspen Technology, Inc, 1981e2001) software which has been previously applied to similar analyses (Querol et al, 2011).…”

Off-Design Modeling of Natural Gas Combined Cycle Power Plants: An Order Reduction by Means of Thermoeconomic Input–Output Analysis

“…Both the on-and off-design model computed temperature, pressure and mass flow rate of each stream at different operating conditions. From such values, the related exergy rates are derived according to literature [12,22,28], and exergy balances for each plant component are derived according to relation Equation (1). The fundamental matrices and vectors presented in Figure 1 are then derived for each on-and off-design configuration of the system, as described in Subsection 2.1.…”