Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Plant Design Part 1: Economics

Economics
Cogeneration economics
Calculates the the return on investment, present worth, and payback for a power plant that produces electrical power or produces both electrical power and heat energy.
Flash tank economics
This program calculates the economic results that can be achieved by using a flash tank and a heat exchanger to recover boiler blowdown. The program calculates the amount of flash steam and saturated condensate that will separate when a high pressure, high temperature water steam is flashed in a tank of lower pressure. It then assigns a dollar value to each of the two components based on the value of fuel, boiler efficiency, etc.
Insulation economics
This program calculates the heat loss and surface temperature of an insulated pipe of specified diameter and internal temperature. It then calculates the present worth cost, $/foot, to own and operate each insulated system. This allows the user to select the optimum insulation thickness for each pipe based either on the cost of the insulation and heat loss or on the maximum acceptable surface temperature. Four types of insulation are supported. Pipe sizes through 36" are included. Three layers of insulation are supported ranging in thickness from 0 to 10".