Heuristic Balancing of Steam Networks

Header balancing (as applicable to steam, hydrogen, fuel and other headers) is a challenge in a sequential modular environment since classically all but one stream must be known in order to determine the final unknown by balance However, a steam header commonly has multiple unknowns that must be determined by the model

So for example a HP header might:

• Have fixed steam in from process WHB, and fixed steam out to turbines and process heaters
• Have a certain minimum steam from the HRSGs, and a certain minimum steam out to STGs and letdowns
• If demand increases, the HRSGs would ramp up
• Once HRSGs are at full output, the boilers would ramp up
• If demand reduces steam could be sent to a condensing STG to reduce power import
• Once this is maximised, either due to power balance or STG capacity, steam might be dumped to a lower header or vented

Steam headers heuristic balancing has been introduced in Petro-SIM 6.2 to enable greater flexibility and greater applicability for steam system modelling.

The new features allow the user to build models with much more flexibility ways of balancing multiple steam headers.