Appendix A

Process Simulation
HYSYS

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HYSYS Operating Instruction

A Deethanizer will be used as the sample problem. Here is the PFD
and Material Balance that must be designed.

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App A - 3

HYSYS 2.2 --- Operating Instructions

Deethanizer Design
Set Up the Simulation
1.

Open HYSYS

2.

Change Units to English (also can set other preferences, like color)
TOOLS-PREFERENCES-Variables-Field

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3.

Start a New Case to enter the BASIS Manager (where you define your
components, chemistry, VLE Data, etc)

FILE-New-Case

Before proceeding, SAVE your file. Save often and keep multiple copies for
various levels of detail. Always have a copy of something that worked.
FILE-SAVE AS-locate where you want to put it.

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4. Bring up the Fluid Package (by pressing Fluid Package Tab and then ADD)
That brings you directly to the Prop Package Tab. For a Deethanizer simulation,
all components will be ideal, so we will pick PRSV equation of state. This choice
must eventually be verified with actual data or experience.

5. Pick Components (View Components Button)

Find your component by name or formula (a bit tricky sometimes) and move it
from the library to your simulation using the <----Add Pure Button.

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The components can be sorted with the SORT LIST button (recommend you do
this in order of expected volatility).

You can remove any components you accidentally added with the REMOVE COMPS
button.
You should at least review the other tabs, especially if you used one of the nonideal VLE packages (e.g. NRTL).
You could now add your reactor information, but lets do that later.
Close the Fluid Package and reenter the Simulation Manager and then hit the
ENTER SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT button.
When you enter the Simulation Environment you can change all of your colors
using Tools-Preferences-Resources.

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Define Simulation Blocks

You will see a PFD Screen and an Equipment Screen.
1. Add a Feed
Click and Drag the Blue Arrow indicating a material stream to the PFD Screen
(red arrow is an energy stream).

Define the Feed by double clicking and opening up you feed window.

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The first screen has the Conditions for the stream. Input 2 of 3, Temperature,
Pressure, Vapor Fraction (VF). A VF=0 indicates a bubble point and a VF=1
indicates a dew point. We know that the stream is at 100F and (lets assume)
400 psia.

Enter the Feed Composition by hitting COMPOSITION from the menu.

YOU CANNOT MAKE CHANGES HERE. You need to hit the EDIT button.

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Pick your COMPOSITION BASIS (mole or weight, Flows or Fractions). Well use
weight Flows from our material balance. Enter your Data. Hit Normalize.

Hit OK and go back to your Conditions menu and youll see that the vapor
fraction and Lb mol/hr have been calculated along with various other properties.
You also see that there is now a green strip saying OK at the bottom. This
indicates that the Feed is fully defined. The Light Blue arrow also turns Dark
Blue. Close this screen and lets add a heat exchanger.
2. Add a Heat Exchanger

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Click and Drag a Heat Exchanger Icon to the PFD Screen. There are a bunch of
them, lets take the Blue Shell and Tube indicating a cooler.

Define the Exchanger by double clicking and opening up the input windows.

First, connect the flowsheet by naming the inlet and outlet and energy streams.
The inlet stream is obviously your defined feed stream (Stream 1). You can
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name the outlet, lets call it DeC2 Feed, and the energy stream can be anything
(call it Refrig-1).

Go to the PARAMETERS Menu. Put in a pressure drop of 5 psi, but DO NOT

put in a duty. You can define the load on the exchanger with duty (here) or by
defining the outlet stream temperature or Vapor Fraction. We will do it with the
stream. If you try to do both, the little red light at the top will light and you will be
required to unspecify the problem.
Close up the Heat Exchanger (we will specify the load in the HEx outlet stream).
Note that HEx is now connected, but it has not been calculated.

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Double click onto the HEx outlet stream (DeC2 Feed).

Lets say we want to condense the stream to its bubble point (VF=0). (Note that
Stream 1 has a vapor fraction of 1.0 at 100F and 350 psia. Enter Vapor
Fraction = 0 and the temperature is calculated (25.3F) and the OK given.
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Close this and the PFD now appears complete. Bringing your cursor to the Heat
Exchanger opens up a box which shows that a duty of 10.44 MMBTU/hr has
been calculated.

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3. Add a Distillation Tower

Click and drag a distillation tower icon to the PFD screen. There are a bunch of
them --- pick the one with a condenser and a reboiler.

Define the tower parameters by double clicking and opening up an input sheet.

We will design the Deethanizer. Input the following info on this first sheet.
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o Stream Names (be descriptive)

o DeC2 Feed (from the Feed HEx Outlet)
o Crude C2s (overhead stream)
o Crude C3s (bottom stream)
o Refrig-0F (condensing medium - 0F refrigerant)
o LPS (reboiling medium low pressure steam)
o Column Name (DeC2)
o Condenser Type (Total)
o Number of Stages (lets say 30)
o Feed Stage (lets say in the middle 15)
When done, the NEXT button will activate.

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Next screen is for the pressure levels. The DeC2 runs at 300 psia condenser
with a 5 psi pressure drop for the condenser and a 0.15 psi P per theoretical
stage (0.15 x 30 = 4.5 psi P for all of the trays).
o Reboiler Pressure = 300 + 5 (Condenser) + 4.5 (trays) = 309.5 psia.

Hit the NEXT button to get the Temperature Estimate page. Put in 0F at the top
and 100F at the bottom. Good estimates can be critical in complex problems.

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Hit NEXT and get the final input screen where Reflux Ratio (RR) and a material
balance spec is inputted. I would start with a RR = 1.0 and you can take your
distillate rate directly from your material balance (40,198 lb/hr). Make sure you
change your flow basis to mass.

Press DONE and enter the tower run/performance sheets. The first screen is the
echo of your input. You come here to change, number of trays, feed location..

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The menu on the left side of the DESIGN form shows where to go to modify your
tower specs, put in new specs and change condenser requirements. Hit the
MONITOR button and show your run sheet. Youll find it convenient to execute
your run from this sheet so you can observe (monitor!!!) whats happening.

Your 1.0 RR and 40,198 lb/hr Distillate Rate are already shown. These are your
two tower specs. If you try and add another one (say Bottoms rate), the program
will tell you are over specified. Press the RUN button.

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The red bar at the bottom turns yellow to say it is solving and then green when it
is converged. You now have a valid run. But is it the solution that you want.
Remember, that we wanted only 20 lb/hr of C2s in the bottom (900 wt ppm) to
meet the Propylene Product spec. To check it, press the PERFORMANCE tab.

You can change units and column widths to get a better view.
The 1st menu shows the composition of both the feed and products. This shows
you have about 2 lb/hr C2s in the C3s while your specs allow 20. In general, it
is not a good idea to make too good a product, so that we should back off,
either by reducing reflux or stages.

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Similarly, you can get the tower Temperature and Pressure and Flow profiles by
hitting the Column Profile Button.

The tower heat loads are found by hitting the Feeds/Products Button.
(Condenser = 11.4 MMBTU/hr and Reboiler = 11.7 MMBTU/hr duties)
Finally,

you

can

plot

any

of

the

profiles

using

the

plots

button.

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Now, back to the problem. Since our C3 Bottoms are TOO GOOD quality, lets
reduce RR from 1.0 to 0.8. Close the table and go back to the MONITOR screen
(at the DESIGN tab). Change the RR to 0.8. It will recalculate your tower for the
new RR automatically. Go back to PERFORMANCE/SUMMARY.

The C2s are now at 5.0+ lb/hr. We can reduce RR further. By trial and error you
can get to a RR = 0.69 to get 20 lb/hr. OR, you can set up another tower spec to
get it for you directly. Go to the DESIGN Tab, and hit the SPECS button on the
left to open up the SPECS window.

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Add a new spec that says we want exactly 20 lb/hr C2s in the Crude C3s stream.
First, hit the ADD button on the Spec sheet. Then in the popup menu find the
Column Component Flow.
Double Click on it and fill in the info for the new menu.

Close the screen and go back to monitor where you will see the new spec at the
bottom. Now you need to deactivate one spec (RR) and activate the new one
you just created. It will recalculate and modify the RR to give you your 20 lb/hr
spec of C2s in the Crude C3 stream.

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Double checking the PERFORMANCE/SUMMARY again shows the C2s at

exactly 20 lb/hr in the bottoms.

Go to PERFORMANCE/Column Profiles, to see the temperature/pressure/flow

profiles in tower as well as the duties. Go to the Plots screen and you can plot
any of the P, T, Flow, K, Property values or get them in tabular form.

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WORKSHEET gives you Conditions, Properties and Compositions of the terminal

streams.

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Your PFD is now all dark blue indicating everything has been converged.

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4. Add a Reactor
First we have to go back to the Basis Environment .

And enter into the Simulation Basis Manager.

Hit the REACTIONS Tab.

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Next, add the components involved in the reactions (if theyre not already there).
We will simulate C2H2 being hydrogenated to both C2H4 and C2H6. Hit the
ADD COMPS button and then the ADD THIS GROUP OF COMPONENTS
button.

Now hit the ADD RXN button where a little window will pop up asking what kind
of reactor to use.
Since we do not have actual kinetic models, use
CONVERSION.
Double click the Conversion and youll get a screen to enter your stoichiometric
data.

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Note that negative Stoic Coefficient indicates reactants and positive is products.
Click on the BASIS tab and fill in the conversion of C2H2 to C2H4, say its 20% to
C2H4 and 80% to C2H6. Put in 20% for the Co term and zero for the others.

Close the window and hit ADD RXN again to input the ethane at 80% conversion.

Remember to finish the BASIS (conversion).

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Close the window and go back to the SIMULATION BASIS MANAGER. Hit the
ADD to FP button and then the ADD SET TO FLUID PACKAGE button.

You can now return to the Simulation Environment.

Add the reactor by first clicking on the General Reactor icon. This will bring up a
mini reactor type icon menu.

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Pick the C reactor for conversion reactor and click it onto the PFD.

Double Click on the reactor to get the reactor input sheet. Fill in the name of the
Reactor and the stream names. The feed to this reactor is the Crude C2s.

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Go to the Reactors tab and pick the Global Reaction Set.

Hit the RESULTS Button and go to Reaction Balance.

Nothing ReactedWHY????????????

Why doesnt the reactor convert??????

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Because DUMMY, you forgot to add some H2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(just to let you know, it took me an hour before I realized I forgot the H2)
Add some now with the BLUE ARROW. We have 120 lbmol/hr C2H2, say add
250 lbmol/hr H2, then connect it to your converter. As soon as you do, the
reaction will go.

You can see that 24 mols/hr ethylene was made and 96 mols ethane --- the 20%
and 80% conversions, respectively. Acetylene is completely reacted.

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Looking at the WORKSHEET tab under conditions, you see that the temperature
went to 442F and its all vapor.

Since you did not input a utility for the reactor itself, the reactor acts as an
adiabatic reactor. However, the temperature rise that you see here of 342F
(442-110) is not the true adiabatic temperature rise. Some of the heat also goes
to vaporizing the feed, as can be seen in the above table. To get the true
adiabatic rise, you need to first vaporize the feed at 110F and 300 psia.

The outlet temperature is now 745F, resulting in an adiabatic rise of 635F.

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5. ADJUST Block
The ADJUST Block acts as a controller. You can control a specific
parameter by varying another variable or unit operation. For this example,
rather than specifying the bubble point for our DeC2 Feed Exchanger, we will
set a temperature by varying the heat flow to the exchanger.

Go into stream bubpt and delete the vapor fraction. Then click on stream ref50
and put in 1 BTU/hr for heat flow.
Now, click and drag the A-diamond icon.
Double click it on and open up the connection screen.

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Hit Select Variable in the Adjusted Variable area and select the variable you want
to manipulate, in this case ref50 Heat Flow.

Hit Ok and go to the target variable to set the stream bubpt Temperature.

Hit OK .

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Now put in the target Temperature you want, say 50F.

Now go to the PARAMETERS tab to enter the minimum, maximum and

increment range for the heat flow to achieve your target, as well as the tolerance
for your target. We will say we want to increment the heat flow by 0.5 MMBTU/hr
from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 10 MMBTU/hr to achieve a target
temperature of 50F +/- 0.1F.

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We may need more iterations. Close this and click on steam bubpt.

The temperature is 50.032F, well within your 0.1F tolerance.

Open up the E-100 Heat Exchanger and go to the parameters tab and you can
see the duty required to cool down the feed to 50F.

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6. Recycle Block
The Recycle Block helps to connect the recycles more efficiently. To illustrate
the use of the RECYCLE Block, I reduced the conversion of acetylene to 50%
in the reactor and added a Component Splitter which preferentially removes
acetylene for recycle while sending the C2s forward. I also changed the
specs on the column to be RR and C2s in the Bottom.

Opening up the Component Splitter, connect the streams, put in the pressure
and vapor fractions on the parameters page and define the splits (in this case all
acetylene to the overhead, everything else to the bottoms).

Now double click the R-diamond and bring it onto the PFD.
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Open up the Recycle icon and FIRST THING --- CHECK THE IGNORE
BUTTON!!!!!!!. This will ensure that your simulation doesnt take off on you
before youre ready. While here, connect the stream Acetylene to the inlet and
make up a stream C2H2 Recycle for the outlet.

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Now connect the C2H2 Recycle stream to your tower.

Open the C2H2 Stream and put in a likely composition/T/P. In this case, we
are taking pure acetylene from our component splitter and it will be say, 400psia
and 110F (this stream will be recalculated eventually). What you are doing here
is getting the system started with a reasonable first estimate. When the feed to
your recycle block is about the same as your effluent from the recycle block you
will UNCHECK the ignore block. Since we know we will have 50% conversion in
the reactor and we started with 3125 lb/hr C2H2 in the Fresh Feed, we know this
recycle stream has to contain about 3125 lb/hr C2H2 as well. However to
demonstrate a point, we will only put in 1000 lb/hr.

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Go to the Tower module and hit run and it will give a new solution with the
additional 1000 lb/hr C2H2. The ACETYLENE stream now contains 2062 lb/hr
C2H2 and the C2H2 Stream contains the same 1000 lb/hr C2H2 (because the
Recycle Block is still being ignored). Go change the 1000 lb/hr that you inputted
in the previous iteration with the new 2062 that was just calculated. For this
second iteration, the ACETYLENE Stream is now 2593 lb/hr. You can repeat
this procedure until you get closer and the turn the Recycle Block back on, or you
can just do it now. Lets see what happens.
What happened, is that the recycle iterated until 3124.8 lb/hr C2H2 was recycled,
rather close to our expected 3125 lb/hr. We could tighten up the tolerance even
more by going to the Parameter tab of the Recycle Module.
WHY DID WE DO THIS MANUAL ITERATION FIRST.
To be sure that the rest of the program with its complicated specs would function
properly. For example, we started out by changing the tower specs to RR and
C2 Loss in the Bottoms. Previously we had Total Flow of Overhead and C2
Spec in Btm. If we kept that spec, the tower could never converge because it
could not let the additional acetylene flow out the overhead because it was
speced by material balance and it would not have exited the bottoms because of
the C2 spec. This way, if you forgot to change it in the beginning, you may not
have messed up your entire simulation. The morale to the story is DONT
CONNECT THE RECYCLE UNTIL YOU ARE SURE THAT EVERYTHING ELSE
IS BEHAVING.

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HYSYS Helpful Hints

Azeotropes
The tower module does not recognize you have an azeotrope unless you tell it,
even though the properties package dutifully tells you there is one. You need to
do the following:
Tower Module Parameters Solver on the right side, check Azeotrope
2-Liquid Phases
Whenever you suspect two liquid phases on a tray, for example when you have
mesityl oxide and water and stuff, use a different solver routine.
Tower Module Parameters Solver Solving Method Menu
Sparse Continuation Solver
Keeping Windows Open
When you want to keep a window open that has results while you restart the
tower. For Example, you want to check the
Performance-Results-Composition Table
While you are changing specs on your Monitor screen.
Tools --- Preferences --- Simulation --- UN-check Use Modal Properties View
Reports
You can get much better summaries for material balances and unit operations by
using the Workbook feature.
Construct a Material Balance in lb/hr with NO decimal places.
Tools --- Workbook --- Highlight Case --- VIEW
This will open up a screen with some information regarding streams or unit
operations. From here you will create your own summary reports.
Place the cursor on one of the tabs and RIGHT click and hit SETUP
WORKBOOK TABS --- ADD --- hit STREAM --- OK
You can now modify what you wish to summarize, in this case MASS Balance.
TAB CONTENT --- rename to STREAMS MATBAL
Highlight the word VARIABLE --- DELETE --- then hit ADD
This will open up a list of things you can get from the simulation.
COMPONENT MASS FLOW --- ALL Components --- OK
Highlight Format --- Hit the FORMAT button --- change decimal to 0
Close Window and youll have the MatBal. You can go back in and add T, P,
other properties, etc. You can also hide streams (utility streams), and reorder the
streams. You can also make the same summaries with the Unit Operations.
To print, go to the Blue Bar at top, right click PRINT DATASHEET, UN-click All
Pages, click the little plus sign, CHECK your page and PREVIEW and PRINT.

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Physical Property Tables/Graphs

You can get any physical properties for a pure component or a stream. First create
the stream.
Tools --- Utilities --- Property Table --- Connections
Variable 2 will be your X-Axis Variable while Variable 1 will be the additional lines on
your graph variable. The Y-Axis will be the Property. Lets get the Liquid phase heat
capacity of acetone between 0 and 100F at atmospheric pressure.
Select stream that you created --- Acetone Properties
Make Variable 1 Pressure, Variable 2 Temperature
Pressure : Upper 14.7 / Lower 14.7 / Increments 1
Temperature : Upper 100F / Lower 0F / Increments 10
Now set the dependent variable (Cp)
Dep. Properties --- click LIQUID --- pull down table Property Mass Heat Capacity
Hit CALCULATE button
The results are in the performance tab and you can get a table or a plot (right click
PRINT PLOT).

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