1 Introduction

Many process industries are energy-intensive. A large amount of heat energy applied to process
streams is normally dissipated through cooling utilities. It is possible to reuse the heat energy
of hot process streams for heating cold process streams by means of additional heat exchangers.
Such a system is called heat recovery system. The heat recovery system consists of a set of heat
exchangers including heaters, coolers, condensers, reboilers, or other equipment and
attachments for heat transfer between process streams. It can be treated as a heat exchanger
network with different kinds of exchangers in which hot process streams can be cooled by the
cold streams to be heated, and vice versa. In this way, the heating and cooling loads from
external sources (hot and cold utilities) can be dramatically reduced. However, the reduction in
utility costs is often accompanied by the increase in investment costs. Therefore, a balance
between utility costs and investment costs should be established.
The optimal design of a heat exchanger network is to structure a system capable of performing
the prescribed tasks at the minimum total annual costs, which is the sum of the utility costs and
investment costs [1]. Because of its structural characteristics, it is also named the synthesis of
heat exchanger networks. A further extension of the network synthesis is the optimal retrofit
design of existing networks. Principally, the methodologies of optimal design of heat exchanger
networks do not focus on the determination of detailed parameters of heat exchangers of a
network. It takes the network as a system and determines the network configuration and heat
loads of the exchangers used in the network for the further detailed unit design. The well-known
synthesis methodologies are the Pinch design method [2], mathematical programming [3], and
stochastic or heuristic algorithms such as genetic algorithm [4], simulated annealing algorithm
[5] and Tabu search procedure [6]. The genetic algorithm was also combined with simulated
annealing algorithm for the synthesis of multistream heat exchanger networks [7, 8]. This
chapter introduces only the fundamental theories of the design of heat exchanger networks.

2 Temperature Calculation of Heat Exchanger Networks

2.1 Temperature Calculation of a Single Heat Exchanger
For a single heat exchanger, the heat load can be determined by

Q= (M  c p )h  (h − h) = (M c p )c  (c − c ) = F  k  A  LM (1)

where the subscripts „h“ and „c“ denote hot stream and cold stream,   and   are inlet and
outlet temperatures, k is the overall heat transfer coefficient, A the heat transfer area, M the
mass flow rate, and c p the specific heat capacity at constant pressure. The product term (M c p )
is also named heat capacity flow rate. The correction factor F is the ratio of the real mean
temperature difference to the logarithmic mean temperature difference of the counterflow heat
exchanger LM (see also >Chap. C1),

(h − c) − (h − c )

LM =
ln (h − c) (h − c ) (2)

If (h − c)  (h − c ) , the arithmetic mean can be used,

 (h − c) + (h − c )

1
LM  (3)
2
Equation (1) is used to determine the exchanger size according to known stream temperatures.
In >Chap. C1 the two flow streams are denoted with indexes „1“ and „2,“ as defined for the
channels of each flow arrangement. For heat exchanger networks the notations „h“ and „c“ is
more appropriate.

For an existing heat exchanger, the outlet stream temperatures are given by

h vhh vhc  h 

  = v 
vcc  c  (4)
 c   ch
or in the matrix form

 = V (5)

in which  and  are the inlet and outlet temperature vectors of the exchanger, respectively,
and

 (1 − Rh )  e − NTU h (1− Rh ) 1 − e − NTU h (1− Rh ) 

* *

 
v vhc   1 − Rh  e − NTU h (1− Rh ) 1 − Rh  e − NTU h (1− Rh ) 
* *

V =  hh
 vch
=


vcc   Rh  1 − e − NTU h (1− Rh )
*
 1 − Rh 

(6)
− NTU h*  (1− Rh )
1 − Rh  e − NTU h (1− Rh ) 
*
 1 − Rh  e
Rh = 1 Rc = (M c p )h (M c p )c (7)
NTU h* = Rc  NTU c* = F  k  A (M c p )h (8)

Special cases:

e − NTU h 1 − e − NTU h 
* *

Rh → 0 : V =   (9)
 0 1 
 1 0 
Rh →  : V =  − NTU c − NTU c*  (10)
−
*

1 e e 
(F  k  A) → 0 : V = 
1 0
 (11)
0 1
orks. Chem Eng Proc, 48:1506–1516