Waste Heat Steam Generation Using Hot Diesel Product

Action

Our team followed a structured engineering design and analysis process:

System Design and Simulation: 

Developed process flow diagrams in Aspen Plus to model two configurations of waste heat steam generators. Simulations determined the steam generation rate for each option—Option 1: 13.3 klb/hr LPS and Option 2: 16.4 klb/hr LPS with additional MPS generation—while accounting for feedwater conditions and thermal efficiency.

Economic Analysis: 

Conducted a Return on Investment (ROI) and cost-benefit assessment for each configuration:

Option 1: Total capital investment of $1.44 million with $137,000/year cost savings and a 21% ROI.

Option 2: Slightly higher capital investment but increased steam recovery and improved long-term returns.

Economic comparisons were visualized using an efficiency vs. area performance plot.

Process Safety and Hazard Evaluation:

Performed a Process Safety Index (PSI) and HAZOP-style risk assessment to identify key hazards associated with hot diesel flow and pump seal failures.

Identified combustibility hazards due to the low flash point of diesel.

Proposed secondary containment and automatic sprinkler systems to reduce incident probability and pool fire size.

Modeled potential leak and fire scenarios using orifice flow and flame spread calculations.

Source and Consequence Modeling:

Used fluid mechanics principles to estimate pool fire size and duration for a ¼-inch orifice leak, applying a consequence analysis to evaluate thermal radiation impacts on nearby equipment and personnel.