A Novel Design for Plate Fin Heat Exchanger in LNG Propane Precooled Cycle

The most important elements in liquefaction process are heat exchangers that are Plate Fin or Spiral Wounded. In this paper, IRAN LNG liquefaction cycle is simulated using Aspen-Hysys software. Then a procedure for designing plate fin heat exchanger is developed. Moreover, the paper also presents a new method to select the best secondary surface. The obtained surfaces by traditional simulation for cold and warm ends of heat exchanger and overall heat transfer coefficient are 3001 m2, 1933 m2 and 425 W/m2.K. After designing the optimized heat exchanger using the newly developed Rapid Design Algorithm (RDA), the obtained surfaces for cold and warm ends and the overall heat transfer coefficients were 575 m2 and 842 W/m2.K, respectively. This study shows a significant reduction in designing a compact heat exchanger with cold end surface, warm ends surface, and an increase in overall heat transfer coefficient which are 2.5, 3.3 and 2 times lower and higher, respectively.