Refrigerated Gas Plant 1

Refrigerated Gas Plant

2 Refrigerated Gas Plant

Workshop
In this simulation, we will model a simplified version of a refrigerated gas plant to
find the Low Temperature Separator (LTS) temperature at which the hydrocarbon
dewpoint target is met. The Sales Gas hydrocarbon dewpoint should not exceed -
15°C at 6000 kPa. The incoming gas is cooled in two stages:

 First by exchange with product Sales Gas in a gas-gas exchanger (Gas-Gas)

 Then in a propane chiller (Chiller), represented here by a Cooler operation

A Balance operation will be used to evaluate the hydrocarbon dewpoint of the

product stream at 6000 kPa.

Learning Objectives
After you have completed this section, you will be able to:

 Install and converge heat exchangers

 Understand logical operations (Balances and Adjusts)
 Use the Case Study tool to perform case studies on your simulation

Prerequisites
Before beginning this section, you need to know how to:

 Create a fluid package

 Add streams
 Add unit operations
You also need the GasPlant.fkp created in Module 1.

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 Refrigerated Gas Plant 3

Process Overview

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Building the Simulation

This simulation is built in three stages:

1. Defining components list and fluid package

2. Adding streams and unit operations

3. Adding logical operation (Balance and Adjust)

Defining the Simulation Basis

For this case, you will be importing the Peng-Robinson EOS with the following
components, similar to the simulation in the first module:

 Nitrogen  i-Butane
 H2S  n-Butane
 CO2  i-Pentane
 Methane  n-Pentane
 Ethane  n-Hexane
 Propane  H2O
 C7+*

Note:
1. Create a new case.
If you want to recreate the
fluid package, refer to the 2. From the Fluid Pkgs. page import the fluid package, GasPlant, which you
first module (Getting
Started). saved in Module 1 (Getting Started).

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Adding a Feed Stream

Add a new Material stream with the following values:

In this cell... Enter...

Name To Refrig
Temperature 15°C (60°F)
Pressure 6200 kPa (900 psia)
Flow Rate 1440 kgmole/h (3175 lbmole/hr)
Component Mole Fraction

Nitrogen 0.0066
H2S 0.0003
CO2 0.0003
Methane 0.7575
Ethane 0.1709
Propane 0.0413
i-Butane 0.0068
n-Butane 0.0101
i-Pentane 0.0028
n-Pentane 0.0027
n-Hexane 0.0006
H2O 0.0000
C7+ 0.0001

Adding a Separator
There are several ways to add unit operations. For a complete description, see the
Propane Refrigeration Loop module (Adding Unit Operations to a Flowsheet).

 Press the F12 hot key. Select the desired unit operation from the Available
Unit Operations group.
 Double-click the unit operation button in the Object Palette.

On the Connections tab, add a Separator and enter the following information:

In this cell... Enter...

Name Inlet Gas Sep
Feed To Refrig
Vapour Outlet Inlet Sep Vap
Liquid Outlet Inlet Sep Liq

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Adding a Heat Exchanger

The heat exchanger performs two-sided energy and material balance calculations.
The heat exchanger is capable of solving for temperatures, pressures, heat flows
(including heat loss and heat leak), material stream flows, and UA.

1. Double-click the Heat Exchanger button on the Object Palette.

Heat Exchanger icon
2. On the Connections page, enter the following information:

Figure 1

The Tube Side and Shell

Side streams can come
from different Flowsheets,
so you can use the Steam
package on one side of the
exchanger and PR on the
other side.

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 Refrigerated Gas Plant 7

3. Switch to the Parameters page. Complete the page as shown in the following
figure. The pressure drops for the Tube and Shell sides (in field units) will be 35
kPa (5 psi) and 5 kPa (1 psi), respectively.

Figure 2

The heat exchanger models are defined as follows:

 Weighted. The heating curves are broken into intervals, which then
exchange energy individually. An LMTD and UA are calculated for each
interval in the heat curve and summed to calculate the overall exchanger
UA. The Weighted method is available only for Counter-Current
exchangers.
 Endpoint. A single LMTD and UA are calculated from the inlet and outlet
conditions. For simple problems where there is no phase change and Cp is
relatively constant, this option may be sufficient.

4. Select the Specs page.

To solve the heat exchanger, unknown parameters (flows, temperatures) are

manipulated by the solver. Each parameter specification will reduce the degrees of
freedom by one. The number of constraints (specifications) must equal the number of
unknown variables. When this is the case, the degrees of freedom will be equal to
zero, and a solution will be calculated.

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8 Refrigerated Gas Plant

Two specifications are needed for this exchanger:

 Heat Balance = 0. This Duty Error specification is needed to ensure that

the heat equation balances. As a default specification, it is always added by
Aspen HYSYS, so you do not need to supply it
 Min Approach = 5°C. This value is the minimum temperature difference
between the hot and cold stream. Details of how to set this are below.

You can have multiple

5. To deactivate the UA specification, select the Active check box for the UA
Estimate specifications. specification.
The Heat Exchanger will
only use the Active 6. To add a specification, click the Add button. The ExchSpec view displays.
specifications for
convergence.
7. Provide the following information:

In this cell... Enter...

Name Temp Approach
Type Min Approach
Pass Overall
Spec Value 5°C (9°F)

Figure 3

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 Refrigerated Gas Plant 9

When you change the type of specification, the view will change accordingly. After
all the information has been provided, the view will display as shown:

Figure 4

Finishing the Simulation

Add the two remaining physical unit operations to complete the simulation.

1. Add a Cooler and provide the following information:

In this cell... Enter...

Connections
Name Chiller
Inlet Stream Gas to Chiller
Outlet Stream Gas to LTS
Energy Stream Chiller Q
Parameters
Delta P 35 kPa (5 psia)

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2. Add a Separator and provide the following information on the Connections tab:

In this cell... Enter...

Name LTS
Inlet Stream Gas to LTS
Vapour Outlet LTS Vap
Liquid Outlet LTS Liq

What piece of information is required for the LTS separator to solve?

____________________________________________________________________________

In the next section, the LTS feed temperature will be varied using an Adjust
operation to find a temperature at which the dewpoint constraint is met. For now,
specify the temperature of stream Gas to LTS to be -20°C (-4°F).

What is the pressure of Sales Gas? ______________________________________________

What is the temperature of Sales Gas? ___________________________________________

Adding the Balance

The Balance operation provides a general-purpose heat-and-material balance facility.
There are different Balances available in Aspen HYSYS.

 Mole. An overall balance is performed in which only the molar flow of

each component is conserved. Outlet streams will have the same molar flow
rate and composition as the inlet stream, but will contain no vapour fraction,
temperature, or pressure values.
 Mass. An overall balance is performed in which only the mass flow is
conserved. The outlet stream will contain no composition, vapour fraction,
temperature, or pressure.
 Heat. An overall balance is performed in which only the heat flow is
conserved.
 Mole and Heat. An overall balance is performed in which the heat and
molar flow is conserved.

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Look at the parameters for Sales Gas. The stream parameters are calculated so that
there is no way you can force the stream to calculate a dewpoint temperature at 6000
kPa. Adding a Mole Balance allows you to create a second stream with the same
molar flowrate and composition as Sales Gas but without vapour fraction,
temperature, or pressure.

1. Double-click the Balance icon on the Object Palette.

Balance icon
2. Add the following information on the Connections tab:

In this cell... Enter...

Inlet Stream Sales Gas
Outlet Stream HC Dewpoint
Type (on Parameters tab) Mole

3. Specify a Pressure of 6000 kPa (870 psia) for the stream HC Dewpoint.

4. Set the Vapour Fraction to calculate the dew point temperature.

What is the dewpoint temperature? ______________________________________________

The required dewpoint is -15°C; is the current dewpoint higher or lower?

____________________________________________________________________________

Assuming that pressure is fixed, what other parameter affects the dewpoint?

____________________________________________________________________________

How can we change the dewpoint in the simulation? ________________________________

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Adding the Adjust

The Adjust operation is a Logical Operation; meaning it is a mathematical operation
rather than a physical operation. It will vary the value of one stream variable (the
independent variable) to meet a required value or specification (the dependant
variable) in another stream or operation.

1. Double-click the Adjust icon on the Object Palette; the Adjust property view
displays.
Adjust icon

Figure 5

The Adjusted Variable

must always be a user
specified value.

2. Click the Select Var... button in the Adjusted Variable group. The Variable
Navigator view displays.

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3. From the Object list, select Gas to LTS. From the Variable list, select
Temperature.

Figure 6

Always work left to right in

the Variable Navigator.
Don’t forget you can use
the Object Filter when the
Object list is large.

4. Click OK to accept the variable and return to the Adjust property view.

5. Click the Select Var... button in the Target Variable group.

6. Select the object HC Dewpoint, and then select Temperature as the target
variable.

7. Enter a value of -15°C (5°F) in the Specified Target Value box.

8. The completed Connections tab is shown in the following figure.

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14 Refrigerated Gas Plant

Figure 7

9. Switch to the Parameters tab, and leave the parameters at the default values.

Figure 8

When adjusting certain

variables, it is often a good
idea to provide a minimum
or maximum which
corresponds to a physical
boundary, such as zero for
pressure or flow.

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Note the Tolerance and Step Size values. When considering step sizes, use larger
rather than smaller sizes. The Secant method works best once the solution has been
bracketed; by using a larger step size, you are more likely to bracket the solution
quickly. It is good practice to try a manual change on the adjusted value and look at
the target value and see if 1) it changes; if not then it is not sensitive to the adjusted
value, and 2) if it does change by how much relative to the adjusted value. This will
give an idea then of how to configure the adjuster.

10. Click Start to begin calculations.

11. To view the progress of the Adjust, go to the Monitor page.

Figure 9

What is the Chiller outlet temperature to achieve the Dewpoint specification?

____________________________________________________________________________

Save your case!

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Advanced Modeling
Installing a Template in a Simulation
After you have completed the Refrigerated Gas Plant example, you can link it to the
Propane Loop template.

The duty of the Chiller, Chiller Q, in the Gas Plant will be linked to the duty of the
Chiller, Chill-Q, in the Propane Refrigeration Loop template.

1. Open the refrigerated gas plant simulation you saved at the end of Page 16 and
Sub-Flowsheet icon double-click the Sub-Flowsheet icon on the Object Palette.

2. Click Read an Existing Template.

Figure 10

3. Open the template file C3Loop.tpl saved in Module 2.

Once the template is installed as a new sub-flowsheet any subsequent changes made
only affect this instance, they do not affect the template from which the sub-
flowsheet was derived.

Template Connections Tab

On the Connections tab, you can enter all the Feed and Product connections between
the sub-flowsheet and the main flowsheet. Feed connections are material or energy
streams into the sub-flowsheet, products are out of the sub-flowsheet.

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Figure 11

Internal streams refer to

streams in the sub-
flowsheet. External
streams are in the main
flowsheet.

4. In the Inlet Connections to Sub-Flowsheet group, click the External Stream

box along side Chill-Q and select Chiller Q from the pull down menu. You will
notice the Chill-Q stream on the sub-flowsheet is automatically renamed Chiller
Q to match the main flowsheet stream name.

5. For the other two streams there are no existing streams in the main flowsheet so
give them new stream names as in Figure 12.

6. Rename the sub-flowsheet to C3 Loop Refrig.

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Figure 12

Reviewing the Simulation Basis

7. Enter the Simulation Basis.

Note that since the default Internal Basis option was used when configuring the
template, the refrigeration loop sub-flowsheet is using a different fluid package to the
main flowsheet. If required the fluid package used by each sub-flowsheet can be
changed in the right-hand table.

Figure 13

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Transfer Basis
Aspen HYSYS has the option to model a sub-flowsheet using a different fluid
package to the main flowsheet. This allows, for example, the modelling of a Gas
Sweetening process as a sub-flowsheet using PRSour within a main flowsheet using
PR.

Aspen HYSYS must do a flash for any streams passing between flowsheets as each
fluid package could calculate different properties. The Transfer Basis sets what kind
of flash is done.
Flash Type Description
P-H Flash The Pressure and Enthalpy of the material stream are
passed between flowsheets. A new temperature and
vapour fraction will be calculated. Since the Enthalpy basis
may be different for each property package this option is
only recommended when the same fluid package is in use
for both streams.
T-P Flash The Pressure and Temperature of the Material stream are
passed between flowsheets. A new Vapour Fraction will be
calculated.
VF-T Flash The Vapour Fraction and Temperature of the Material
stream are passed between flowsheets. A new Pressure will
be calculated.
VF-P Flash The Vapour Fraction and Pressure of the material stream
are passed between flowsheets. A new temperature will be
calculated.
None Required No calculation is required for an Energy stream. The heat
flow will simply be passed between flowsheets.

In this case no transfer basis is required since only energy streams pass across the
flowsheet boundary.

What is the flowrate of propane in the Refrigeration Loop? __________________________

Save your case!

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Exploring the Simulation

Exercise 1: Modifying the Exchanger
The available UA for the Gas-Gas Exchanger is only 2e5 kJ/°C.h. Make the
Any unit operation can be
temporarily removed from necessary modifications to your exchanger design to achieve this UA.
the calculations by
selecting the Ignore check
box. How does this affect your LMTD and Temperature Approach? _______________________

Using the Case Study

Open the Starter case: Module3_CaseStudyStarter.hsc. The Case Study tool allows
you to monitor the steady state response of key process variables to changes in your
process. You select independent variables to change and dependent variables to
monitor. Aspen HYSYS varies the independent variables one at a time, and with
each change, the dependent variables are calculated. This allows you to “batch run”
many sequential cases and record the answers in a table or graphically

The Economizer in the Propane Refrigeration loop saves energy over the single
compression loop. The outlet pressure from the first stage compressor (Stream 4) has
a significant effect on the total compression power required. We will use the Case
Study to see the effect of changing the first stage compressor outlet pressure on the
total power required by the refrigeration loop.

If your case contains any Adjust operations, they must be turned off so that they do
not conflict with the Case Study.

1. From the Tools menu select Databook (or press Ctrl+D), to open the Databook.
Both the independent and
the dependent variables
are added to the Databook
from the Variables tab.

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Figure 14

2. On the Variables tab, click the Insert button to open the Variable Navigator.
Only user-supplied
variables can be selected
as Independent Variables. 3. Select the Pressure in stream 4 as the first variable.

4. Click the Add button to add the variable.

5. Add an additional variable SPRDSHT-1, cell A3 and click Add. Click Close to
close the Variable Navigator window.

6. In the Databook, switch to the Case Studies tab.

7. Click the Add button to add a new Case Study.

8. Select Stream 4, Pressure as the Independent Variable and SPRDSHT-1, cell

A3 as the Dependent Variable.

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Figure 15

Transpose Table is one of the improvements added in Aspen HYSYS version 2006.

9. Click the View button to setup the Case Study.

10. Enter values for Low Bound, High Bound, and Step Size of 300 kPa (45 psia),
1600 kPa (235 psia), and 50 kPa (5 psi), respectively.

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Figure 16

11. Click Start to begin calculations.

Figure 17

What First stage compressor outlet pressure (Stream 4) will result in the minimum power
usage in the refrigeration loop?

____________________________________________________________________________

Now use the casestudy to vary the temperature of stream 3 between -15 and -25 to
see the effect of a combined pressure and temperature change.

Save your case!

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