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A short Primer for Using Aspen Plus
process simulation software
There are many subprograms within the Aspen Tech family of
software tools. This short
primer focuses on Aspen Plus, a process simulation tool. Many of
the other tools
integrate into Aspen Plus
while others are stand-alone systems. This first primer
outlines
a simple flowsheet involving a distillation column. Hopefully it
provides some useful
introduction to Aspen without involving unessential details.
I provide considerable editorial information in this primer that
I hope is useful but that
makes it longer than necessary. The essential steps to
completing this problem can be
executed by focusing on the numbered items only and ignoring the
introductory
explanations and figures in each section. The entire process
should take less than 15
minutes in this mode.
Getting Started
1. Navigate to the Aspen Plus User Interface program which will
generally be found underthe following sequence of program menus
Aspen Tech -> Aspen Engineering Suite ->
Aspen Plus 2004.1 -> Aspen Plus User Interface.
2. The first dialog box you encounter asks you to select either
a new simulation or chooseamong existing simulations saved to a
disk, the latter choice including a listbox of past
simulations. Here we assume you are starting a new simulation.
You may choose either a
blank simulation or a template. Here we assume you want to
choose a template. Select
Template and OK.Figure 1illustrates this dialog box with some of
the important selections
discussed above highlighted with red ovals.
Figure 1 Opening dialog box in Aspen Plus
3. The next dialog box has two tabs one for simulations and one
for refineries. Choose thesimulation tab for this primer. Also, the
lower right corner has a drop-down list box
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labeled Run Type. Choose Flowsheet for this primer (see Appendix
for other options).
Finally, choose a process type and units in which you want to
work from the list of options
in dialog box. Here we suggest a Generic Simulation with English
Units. All of these choices
can be modified later in the program if desired. The essential
difference among the
process types is that Aspen preselects the thermodynamic models
most appropriate for
the given process. However, you are able to override these
pre-selected choices if you
choose to do so.Figure 2illustrates this dialog box with some of
the important selections
discussed above highlighted with red ovals.
Figure 2 Second dialog box in Aspen Plus with selection of
process type and run type.
4. You should now have a blank process simulation window open.
Also, there should beseries of unit operations choices called the
Model Library along the bottom of the dialog
box. If the Model Library does not appear, select Model Library
under the View menu at
the top of the page. This page is illustrated in Error!
Reference source not found..
5. You are now ready to construct a simulation.6. From this
point on, you can step through the minimally required input fields
by selecting
the Next button at the top of the page (an uppercase, blue N
with a right-pointing arrow
highlighted with a red oval near the top ofError! Reference
source not found.). The Next
function can alternatively be accessed by pressing F4 or by
selecting it from the Tools
menu. This will lead you through the various stages of setting
up a simulation.
