Chemical process simulation software
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The history of process simulation software is strongly related to the development of the computer science and of computer hardware and programming languages. Process simulation software also encouraged the further development of mathematical models in the fields of numerics and the solving of complex problems. Despite this big advantage predicted properties are normally only used in early steps of the process development to find first approximate solutions and to exclude wrong pathways because these estimation methods normally introduce higher errors than correlations obtained from real data. Using predictive methods is much cheaper than experimental work and also than data from data banks.
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To obtain reliable parameters it is necessary to have experimental data which are usually obtained from factual data banks or, if no data are publicly available, from measurements. The equations and correlations are normally preferred because they describe the property exactly.
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Process simulation is therefore one of the few fields where scientists from chemistry, physics, computer science, mathematics, and several engineering fields work together.Ī lot of efforts are made to develop new and improved models for the calculation of properties.
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Model development is done on the chemical engineering side but also in control engineering and for the improvement of mathematical simulation techniques. The development of models for a better representation of real processes is the core of the further development of the simulation software. Models also allow interpolation and extrapolation - within certain limits - and enable the search for conditions outside the range of known properties. Process simulation always use models which introduce approximations and assumptions but allow the description of a property over a wide range of temperatures and pressures which might not be covered by real data. This is essentially an optimization problem which has to be solved in an iterative process. The goal of a process simulation is to find optimal conditions for an examined process. The software has to solve the mass and energy balance to find a stable operating point. Process simulation software describes processes in flow diagrams where unit operations are positioned and connected by product or educt streams. Basic prerequisites are a thorough knowledge of chemical and physical properties of pure components and mixtures, of reactions, and of mathematical models which, in combination, allow the calculation of a process in computers. Process simulation is a model-based representation of chemical, physical, biological, and other technical processes and unit operations in software. 4 Steady state and dynamic process simulation.