Placement of condensate flash tanks in multiple effect evaporator system Original Research Article

A scalable new model is developed for the analysis of multiple effect evaporator (MEE) systems with the induction of condensate flashing. It uses the concepts of stream analysis and temperature path for the formulation of model equations. In addition to above the model also takes into account boiling point rise and variable physico-thermal properties of steam/vapor condensate and liquor while simulating the MEE system. The present model consists of linear equations, which are automatically generated through temperature path. To establish the reliability of the present model it was run for four different case studies and the results are compared well with the published models. This paper shows the trade-off between annual capital and operating costs, which decides optimum number of flash tanks as well as their positions in the MEE system.