‘Chania ntoceang &Prcesaig: Pos Intestin 125 (2018) 205-209 Contents lists available at ScisnceDisece Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification journal homepage: wuw.oisevier.comilocateleep Capital cost of compressors for conceptual design ® William L. Luyben roentgen Une ie, PA, 101, te Sas Vapor recumpretion coer den aay process intensification techaiquesfvolve the use of gas compresors Gas vcyles i ypeally used 10 Improve yield and selectivity n eattor/seperation process. Vapor recompression in distillation systems are ‘becoming more widely applied, particularly with complex separations such as diva, eatve extractive and azeoropic distillation ystems A the conceptual design stage Kis vital to have veasonable estimates of the capital cot of compeetons Involved in these proceses The leranure cervlatione wie oly The compresir ower to eximate capital eo, and there are sgnfcan diferences in te published meths. However, ination to power, i appeats that "siction presse azo must be considered in com eimation, The proprietary Aspen Economics program giver results tat show a strong dependency of cst on the pressure ofthe gas Being compressed. “The purpote thie paper tn provide a simple method to etna eorpressor capital co that incorporates both compressor power an compressor suction prese, A case sy lsat that the conventional hewtc ‘of wing equal compression ratios in multistage ompresion tins doesnot give the optimum economic desi 1. Introduction Reliable an easy-toause methods for estimating the cost of equip: ‘ment ar vital atthe conceptual design stage of chemical plant design All design textbooks provide graphs and/or equations for making these ‘estimates, The capital cos of pressure vessels and heat exchangers are two of the mest important, and existing published methods are aval able and are in fatty good agreement. However, the situation with compressor cost estimation is quite diffecent. The published methods show significant differences in theie predicted results. In addition the published methods use the single ‘parameter of compressor power requirement fer cost estimation Aspen Economies is @ proprietary software package char predicts ‘much largee compressor capital cost than the published methods, More importantly it shows a stong dependence of cost on compressor suction ‘conditions in addition to compressor power. For the same compressor ‘power (ame compression ratio, inlet remperature, ges composition and ‘molar throughput), Aspen Eeonomies prediers thar compressor capil investment increases as compressor suction pressure decreases ‘Compressors afe volumetsic devices, and they handle volumetric Alowrates. As suction pressure decreases, more volume of gas must be ‘captured by te turbine blades for the same mass or molar throuhp. “Therefore the sizeof the compressor must inerease. Nothing has been, found in the published Kterature that quaatifies this effect "The purpose of chis paper is to provide a simple methods estimate ‘compressor capital cost that incorporates both compressor power and nad ers wien compressor suction presse 2. Published methods ‘The chemical engineering design textbooks all present mechods for estimating compressor capital costs Douglas (1) give a widely sed correlation, Compressor Cost ($) = S840(kw’)® For a numerical example, consider the compression 1000 kmol/h of| nitcogen at suction conditions of 1 bar and $0°C. Assuming an ASTIS polywopic efficiency of 80% and using Peng-Robinson physical prop- erties, Aspen Plus predicts a power requicement of 1010 KW for @ty> pical compression ratio of 2.5. The Douglas method gives 2 compressor and drive capital cost of $1,700,000 using seainlss seoal materials of construction. Changing the suction pressure and keeping the same ‘compression soto does no significantly change the power requirement. So che Douglas method does not have any dependence of capital cos on suction pressure “The design rexthook by Turton eta. [2] gives separate case curves for the compressor and for the drive, Only compressor power Is sed to estimate capital cost Using the numerical example considered above, ‘Turton predicts a carbon-seel compressor cost of $280 per KW at 1000 kW and an electric deve cost of $1.20 per KA. Using a $S-0-CS ratio of 5.8/2.7 for che compressor, the toral capital cose predicted Is $722,000. This isles than half the cost predicted by Douglas. ‘vaiableonie 2 cy 2018 {286-2701 © 2018 Flee BY. Alt igh reeceWL tgton [Compan of Campreso Cos tins. ovale ‘700000 Seder Staon.a0 ‘eo Homer 2500000, Peters et al. [8] predieta cost of $2,000,000 using only compeessor power as the costing parameter. Seder et a. [4] also use only com- [pressor povier to predict a cost of $1,000,000. “The only refeveace that hinss at the effet of suction pressure leit (51. Figure 5-29 in Ulrich gives a plo in which the abscissa isthe ‘volumetric flowrate ofthe gas, not che normal power. But cis flowrate Bs given ar standard conditions (1 atm, so the effect of suction pressure is not included. Ulrich predicts a cos of $417,000. Calado (6) explores compression trains for sequestration of carbon, dioxide and proposes the following correlations for stainless steel ‘compressors and electric motor drives. Compressor Cos (S) = 2.Sexp[788 + 08 In¢hp)] Motor Cost) 2049 + 658:16(hp) ‘The Calado capital cost prediction for the numerical example is 181,530,000. No effect of suction pressure on eaptal cost is included ‘Tole 1 summarize she comparison of che several published capital cose predictions. The parameters are 1000 kmol/h of nitrogen gas at ‘bar and 50°C with a compression ratio of 2.5. The variability among the several methods is clearly very large and introduces too much wn ‘certainty for even conceptual design evaluations. As we demonstrate in the next section, che predieton of Aspen Beonomiks is che largest, s0 i should be used for conservacive desizn (highest capital cos 3 Aspen economies predictions ‘The Lehigh Chemical Engineering senior design course uses a wide ‘varery of process design projects to expose snadents to the base pin ‘ips of design and plancwide control. Each three-student group works ‘on the conceptual design of different processes, so 15-20 projects are ‘explored each year, Many of dhese processes include multi ‘ressors. The conventional engineering heuristic of solecting the sme ‘compression rato in each seage is used with the mumber of rages se lected (© avoid discharge temperatures greater than 200°C as re ‘commended by Walas [7]. With interstage cooling, the power re- ‘quicements in each stage are approximavely the same. Up uncil a few yours ago the capital cost was estimated using the Douglas Convelasion. Then Aspen Economics became available and ie now used since its estimates are moce conservative Giger capital i= vvesemen? However we observe in many projects that the Aspen Beonomics predictions did not give the same capital cost for each stage even ‘hough the power requirements were the same, The fist compressor ‘ose was often much lager than che second and third. ‘One logical piysical reason for the higher cost isthe larger size reared at Tow pressure and density. However, we have been unable co find any quantiative discussion of this in the published literature Private communications with # number of compressor design experts ‘came up empty Clearly the compressor sizing and the costing medhods used in Aspen Economies include hese concep. ‘Another insigh¢ into why Tow suction pressure increases compressor han geri &Procesang: Pros ion 125 (2018) 208-209 cost is gained by comparing dhe power to compress an ideal gas with that co compressa seal gas, The thermodynamic equation forthe power ‘o adiabatically and reversibly compress an ideal gas is given inthe following equation 2 y=1 -wonae| (2) =] ‘The catio of heat capacities y 48 1.4 for an ideal gas. For the mus merical case considered above, the power to compress an ideal gas is 410K, which Is 4086 lager chan the power calculated forthe teal gases. AS suction pressure decreases, gases become mote ideal. So we would expect that chee should he an effect of pressure on compressor design ‘Ar the concepeual design stage it would be useful to hve a simple way co quantitatively incorporate the effect of suction pressure on cae pital cost. That isthe provided in éhis paper. or) = Praha (23064 Amol 4. Correction factor A number of eases were ran using Aspen Plus co simulate the compressor ind Aspen Economies to evaluate capital costs, Throughput was fixed at 1000kmol/h with 2 suction temperacure of 50°C. Compression ratio was fixed at 2.8 and cases were run with diferent suction pressures. Different gases have different ratios of heat eapa- des, so power requirements change with the gs compressed ig. gives resus from Aspen Economics for several gases. Capital cost of a stainless stool compressor and the associated motor drive are shown as a Function ofthe suction pressure The pressure dependence of cost is early shown. Fig. 2 suggest the use of a correction factor as a simple method for adjusting the capital cost. Using the convenient Douglas correlation at the basis, compressor cost is multiplied by the appropriate cotrecton factor ft a specified suction pressure and type of gas. 5. Mulkistage compressor design ‘The conventional design method for multistage compression sy tems isto select the required numberof stages such that che discharge temperature does not exceed 200° (Wales (7). Then the corapression ratio in each sage i selected tobe the same. For example, suppose the ‘overall compression ratio for the system is 8, going from the inal feed 28 pressure othe final discharge pressure atthe end of the corupressor twain. Assuming that the temperature limitation dictates chat three stages should be used, the compression ratio CR in each stage is (6) The general relationship isthe following OR An each stage = (CR Tonal} ™ However, the results given above inthis paper demonstrae that the ‘capital cost of che early stages inthe train, which are a lowe pressures, willbe larger than those wich higher suction pressures. Therefore, the consequence of having higher eapital costs with low suction pressure is tha che conventional heucstc used for multistage compressor design is io longer vali, ‘To illusrare tis, we cake a case in which the following design Parameters are given: (Gas floerate is 1000 km/h of nitrogen Ine temperature is 30°C. Feed prossure is 0.5 bar “The final desited pressure fe 3.1Sbar, which corresponds to an overall compression ratio of 6.25. “The maximum discharge temperature in any sage is 200°C. 1 2 2 a s.WL tgton han geri &Procesang: Pros ion 125 (2018) 208-209 Cost (MM 8) Suction Pressure (bar) A single-stage compressor gives a discharge temperature of 343°C. andl cequites 2405 KW of power. This exceeds the cemperatare fimica tion, so a twostage compressor system must be used. Using the con- ‘ventional design approach with equal compression ratio in each stage (CR = 2.5) with interstage cooling back down 50°C gives discharge temperatures of 175°C and requires 1011 W in each stage. Tis is 2 feasible design, but ic the economfe optimum with che lowest coral ‘anna cose? ‘Table 2 gives the capital and energy costs of several cases. The fist column gives detailed design parameters and economic results for the ‘conventional 2-stage compression tain with equal compression ratios (GR= 2.5) in che wo compressors. The capital cost of che fist compressor is much larger than that of the second (86,193,000 versus 52,574,000). This suggests chat a lower compression rao I che fst compressor and a higher compression in the second might lower capital fivesrment. The tofal energy cost of this conventional design is 51,020,000 per year (using $16 per G) electricity cos, The coral an- ual cost $3,981,000 per year using a 2-year payback period, ‘The second column in Table 2 gives results for a modified design with adjaseed compression ratios. The frst step is to find the com: pression ratio for the second stage thar would just satisfy the 200°C maximum temperature limitation. A compression ratio CR = 2:9 pro- duces the desired discharge temperature. Since the discharge pressure in che second compressor is 3.125bar, the suction pressure in the CORN2. CH, 2 Aapen/Dougla Capa Cost, Correction Factor ‘Suction Pressure (bar) Douglas Correlation: ‘CompressorCost(S) = 5840(kW)""?WL tgton ane Suis, Sa TwoSase Sane sare vmow 95) 08 35 outta 135 hore bs ower aN) 1011 ace m Tosca 175 152 1 ues) sage Poa) 125 1078 on Poros) 2125 a5 16 Power GW) 1001 10 » rence 175 0 1 rr) Sige 3 Fine) . 136 Pourtay - sn Power a) 2 ons rca = : 1a. Capa Cac - a6 nes a0") Toa) erry GW 02 anes 1909 al teey — 10"8.9) L020 1031 Dora Tasty ahs) 8.802 2388 e200 te oS) S960 ase 3750 second compressor must be 1.078bar. The fst scage in this moditied design now has a lower compression ratio CR = 2135 instead of CR = 255 in the oviginal, The seule fs a lower capital cost of che fist ‘compressor (4,638,000) while only a slighdy higher capital cost ofthe ‘socond compressor ($2,608,000). Total capcal cos is $7,358,000, Toca ‘energy cos increases only slightly to $1,031,000 per year. Total annual ‘ost is rede 12% to $3,484,000 per yen han geri &Procesang: Pros ion 125 (2018) 208-209 Another alternative suggests itself a dhis point. Suppose we use a stage compression train that would give even lower compression ratios In the low-pressure stages. This design is expected to give a lower coral tsnual energy cost, but i€ would have these compressors and two in: rerstage coolers, which might increase capital cost. The third column ia “ble 2 shows that the capital cost of the first compressor drops to 58,969,000 using 2 compression ratio of 1.6. The second compressor is 2,315,000 with compression rato of 17 and the tied compressor is 51,826,000 with a compression ratio of 2.3. Toal capital investment Increases to $8,299,000. Energy cost is lower ($983,200 per year) as expected, but not enough to offset the inecease in capital cost. otal nual cost increases ro $3,750,000 por yea. ‘So the 2-stage design with a lower compression ratio in che frst sage isthe economic epritmum. 6. Conclusion ‘A method for adjusting compressor capital costs using oth povier tnd suction pressise i proposed co give move realise estimates for conceptual design of compression system, A case study ilustrates that the conventional heuristic of esual compression ratios in each stage ofa multistage compression tain does not give the economic optimum design. References (0) 104 nowaes Canepa Des of Chee roe, Mae HH 1568 (3) aotaron Re. nai, Whring A. Shere, Ds Rowachayy, Aaa WD, Seder 0, Seader, DR, Lewin, P ‘iy, 2008 {Gb, Ue, A Guide o Chica Egloeertg Process Desi and Eanamis, We MLPA alas, Modaog aad Dag Sather of CCS Camprealon Tal Ste a a ve & oes Dez Panels 2a 6 a