Abstract
As an important part of a heat exchanger network (HEN), a cooler network has a crucial effect on energy conservation and economy of the whole process. However, most researches considered only the circulating water cooling system (CWS) in recent years, with ignorance of the actual situation that the application of air coolers has been widespread in practical industries. In this paper, cooler networks with different types of cooling are optimized. Under the overall consideration of energy, water and total cost, on the basis of lectotype of cooling types among dry air coolers (DAC), spray air coolers (SAC) and water coolers, a superstructure based on mathematical model is established, with the minimum total annual cost as the objective function. A case study has revealed that the model makes optimization results more accordant with industrial practice, which provides a reasonable direction for cooler network synthesis in the field of process industries.
