Published Paper Details:

This research study was aimed at optimizing the total annual cost (TAC) of heat exchanger network (HEN) related problems using modified pinch technique on a software that blends pinch technique with mathematical programming. In this research study, modified pinch technique contained in the Aspen Energy Analyzer software package was utilized and applied in the designing, targeting and optimization of the networks for the minimum TAC for the two cases extracted from literature and solved. The results obtained for total annual cost on the two cases (cases 1 and 2) were $220.541/yr and $567,383/yr respectively which were the least TAC in comparison with the solution of other researchers that used methods involving mathematical programming. The results obtained in this study and the general comparison show that modified pinch technique as embedded in Aspen software can be used to simulate and optimize HENs yielding a TAC comparable or even lower than others obtained by previous researchers that used pure mathematical modeling.