Honors Theses

Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2021

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Engineering

First Advisor

Adam Smith

Second Advisor

Mike Gill

Third Advisor

David Carroll

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

In this project, an optimization and preliminary economic analysis based on the lowest

rent and utility cost was performed on a dimethyl ether process plant. This process model was performed with AVEVA Process Simulation software. Basic chemical engineering design principles as well as 3D response surface modeling and the native AVEVA optimization tool were used to select the most cost-effective equipment by varying process specifications to minimize utility cost, finding the least expensive equipment combinations possible, and selecting the feed tray location. The rental prices were fixed, so only utility and limited process specifications such as feed tray location could be varied to find the minimum equivalent annual operating cost. It was found that dimethyl ether process has the ability to be profitable with an economic potential of $6.8 million annually and the rent and utility cost being about $642,000 annually. It is recommended based on the economic potential to continue the analysis of the project as outlined in this thesis.

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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