Latest Process Modelling Software Expands Capabilities For Effective Engineering & Process Design

Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) announced today the launch of UniSim® Design Suite Release 450 – the newest version of its proven process modelling software that helps industrial manufacturers increase their engineering effectiveness and optimise their process designs.

Honeywell’s UniSim Design Suite is trusted by over 250 companies worldwide in the oil and gas, refining, petrochemical, chemical, and power industries.

“Long-term relationships and feedback from its users has been essential to making UniSim Design Suite one of the industry’s most powerful and useful engineering simulation solution,” said Mike Brown, global director for HPS’ Advanced Solutions business.

“Since its launch more than a decade ago, we’ve listened to feedback to develop innovations that are focused on customers’ real-world concerns. The latest innovations introduced with UniSim Design Suite Release R450 are a prime example of that.”

Process modelling allows engineers to create a number of steady-state and dynamic models for plant and control design and optimisation, hazard and operability (HAZOP) and safety system studies, performance monitoring, troubleshooting, operational improvement, business planning and asset management.

Proven benefits of process modelling include up to 20 percent improvements in engineering effectiveness through best-in-class workflow tools and capital expenditure savings of up to 30 percent through appropriate material selection in safety system design.

Industrial gases and engineering company Linde A.G. standardised on UniSim Design Suite for process simulation in 2006. Linde uses UniSim Design Suite within its engineering workflow and has been involved in joint-development to improve the engineering workflow for every UniSim upgrade.

“UniSim Design Suite has proven to be a very valuable process simulation tool for us. The product covers our needs and the support is excellent,” said Dr. Peter Bose, process engineer and IT consultant at Linde A.G.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc. has also adopted UniSim Design Suite for its exploration and production business. “We have the opportunity to influence the product pipeline through our joint engagements and participation at the Simulation Customer Advisory Board,” said Sriganesh Karur, Process Engineering Applications manager at Shell.

The R450 release features several new key focus areas including:

• Safety – The safety system design featuring the introduction of UniSim PRS (pressure relief system), commercialising a proven internal tool developed by Honeywell UOP, the leading developer and licensor of technologies for the refining, petrochemicals and gas processing industries. UniSim PRS has been used for thousands of relief devices and pipes for Honeywell UOP plant assets. In addition, the new release includes further enhancements to the UniSim Blowdown option, which was co-developed with a major integrated oil company and originally introduced in November 2015. Co-development gave HPS access to a wider data pool and the ability to validate the solution in actual conditions. The enhanced option allows for the sizing and rating of blowdown networks and the selection of appropriate construction materials, in compliance with the API 521 industry standards. The UniSim Flare product, used for the sizing and rating of new or existing flare systems from relief device to the flare tip, has been re-platformed and enhanced for better performance, data visualisation and reporting, and scenario automation.

• Heat-exchangers – The heat-exchanger design and in particular the integration of UniSim Design Suite with Heat Transfer Research, Inc. (HTRI) products has been enhanced. In December, Honeywell expanded its technology alliance with HTRI, a leading global source of process heat transfer technology, research, software, and services, until 2025. As part of that alliance, HTRI continues to maintain the UniSim Heat Exchanger products and Honeywell can now resell and license, under Honeywell”s license authorization system, the HTRI Xchanger Suite® and HTRI XSimOp™ products. The integration of these technologies offers customers the most complete portfolio for heat-exchanger design, rating and simulation in the industry.

• Flow-assurance and sub-sea operations – With UniSim Design Suite R450, it is now possible to model multi-phase pumps (MPPs) in steady-state and dynamics, to support the evolving technology for multiphase pressure boosting. MPPs are particularly important to flow-assurance for sub-sea operations, increasing the commercial viability of production wells. The pipe unit operation has been enhanced to include hydrate and ice formation predictions and sand erosion calculations. Finally, it is now easier to import pressure, volume, temperature (PVT) characterisation data from CALSEP’s PVTSim products into UniSim Design and visualise them, eliminating manual data entry and room for errors.

• Refining support – The new UniSim Design release includes a crude manager for easy importing of assays, more than 100 pre-defined refining properties, and both standard and custom mixing rules, making it easier to model refining processes. This development, in addition to other enhancements, also supports other Honeywell cloud-based solutions that constantly collect plant data and use advanced analytics, recovery optimisation and planning solutions to generate operational insights and recommendations on how to improve efficiency and reduce unplanned downtime.

Together with a full portfolio of software for process design and simulation, UniSim Design is backed by Honeywell’s Benefits Guardianship Program of after-market support as well as a range of optional services that include: standard and custom training programs to maximise returns from the software; consulting services, including engineering studies and development of custom unit operations, extensions or thermodynamics; and joint development programs with customers to accelerate development of specific software features.