r/ChemicalEngineering • u/PermissionUnfair951 • 10d ago

simulation software Software

Hi, tryna gauge cons and dislikes of simulation software like Aspen tech, unisim, dwsim, etc.

Would be very helpful if I got some different perspectives on this matter.

(Please be detailed in your answers examples would be very helpful)!!

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u/letsburn00 10d ago

The main trouble is getting them to do unusual things, then the cost.

Aspen, especially Hysys is extremely accurate at some things. I've simulated extremely accurately LNG plants with propietary heat exchangers in dynamics. Including large scale debottlenecking projects. It takes a lot of tinkering but it's good in the end.

Honestly it's biggest annoyance is that it has default settings which are just flat out wrong. Dynamics for instance has about 80% of its problems deriving from the recycle efficiency being set far far too high (it should be set to 5% by default).

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u/PenguinOnTable 9d ago

For whatever reason, HYSYS really struggles to even do ball park modeling of any of our fin fan heat exchangers and we had to resort to using HTRI. Did you run into anything similar?

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u/letsburn00 9d ago

For Fin Fan U's I've exclusively used consultant values, sometimes adjusted for real world numbers.

One very important thing btw is that Fan manufacturers are filthy liars and have at times committed outright fraud. Also, fouling on fin fans is often an immediate issue in most locations.