Synthesis of large-scale heat exchanger networks using a sequential match reduction approach

In this paper, a sequential approach is outlined which generates networks for industrial sized heat exchanger network synthesis (HENS) problems. The proposed match reduction approach solves a sequence of subproblems, posed as transportation problems, successively reducing the set of matches that are considered in the next stage. The terms involved in the objective function are included at each step with increasing accuracy, until a final design is obtained. One of the subproblems identifies subsets of matches that can be designed separately. Due to the sequential approach, the final design is an approximating solution. Two examples are presented to illustrate the potential of the proposed method. The results show that large HENS problems can be solved to good solutions with modest computational effort. The obtained solutions are in fact, better than the results reported earlier in the literature.