Design-Specification Manual:

A How-to on Aspen Plus

FEED
Pure Isobutane
100 Kmol/hr

PRODUCT
MIXER 95% (mol) isobutane
5% (mol) isobutene

RECYCLE
80% (mol) isobutane
20% (mol) isobutene

This is an example on how to use the Design-Spec mode on Aspen Plus to solve some
simple mass balances. This is especially useful when inlet stream conditions are partially
unknown and some outlet conditions are known. A diagram is shown above to illustrate a
particular set up. There are two unknowns in this example problem—the flow rate of the
RECYCLE stream and the flow rate of the PRODUCT stream.

Design-Spec 1/13
 If you don't know how to login to
Aspen Plus, please see the "Getting
Started on Aspen Plus" manual.

Choose the Template option.

Click 'OK.'

This window allows you to

select a particular simulation
option. For this example,
select the "General with
Metric Units" option. Also,
make sure that the option in
the Run Type box displays
"Flowsheet."

Click 'OK.'

Each time a new file is created or an

existing file is opened this login window
appears.

Enter UNIX host for the server type,

sylvan.che for the node name, and your
correct user name and password.

Click on 'OK.'

Another window will appear indicating the

connection was established. Click 'OK.'

Design-Spec 2/13
 Aspen Plus automatically assigns
labels to every stream and block.
To turn this option off, click on the
Tools menu in the toolbar and
select Options.

In the Options window, click on the

folder tab labeled Flowsheet. Next,
click on these boxes under the
"Stream and Block labels." The
check marks in the boxes should
disappear indicating that these
options are disabled.

Click 'OK' when through.

To start the flow simulation, click

on the down arrow to the right of
the mixer selection at the bottom
of the window. This will give you
options for the type of mixer you
will use. Click on the solid black
square mixer. Next, move the
cursor into the white area and
click on the desired position for
the mixer. A prompt should
appear asking you to input the
block ID, for this example
“Mixer” was chosen. You have
now created the Mixer for the
simulation.
Design-Spec 3/13
 The Feed, Recycle and Product
streams need to be created for this
example.

To create the Feed and Recycle

streams, first click on the “Material
Streams” box at the bottom left
corner of the window. Red and blue
arrows appear around the mixer.
A red arrow signifies a stream that is
required for a design specification;
blue arrows signify an optional
stream.

To change where the Feed stream

enters the mixer, click and hold on
the red feed arrow; note how the
cursor changes into a double
arrow. "Drag" the feed arrow to
its desired position (the top of the
mixer) and release the mouse
button. To return the stream to it’s
original position simply right
click.

Once the Feed stream has been

moved, move the cursor away
from the mixer and click at the
desired location. The stream ID
box will appear. Label the stream
"Feed." Click 'OK'. The Feed
stream will be created.

Design-Spec 4/13
 The Recycle stream is created the
same way as the Feed. Click on
the "Material Streams" box at the
bottom left corner of the window.
Red and blue arrows appear
around the mixer. The feed arrow
on the mixer is now blue because
more than one inlet stream isn’t
required. Click and hold on the
blue feed arrow and drag it to the
bottom of the mixer before
releasing. Then move the cursor
away from the mixer and click.
Label the new stream as
"Recycle". Your diagram should
appear the same as the window to
the left.

Several more feed streams could

be connected to the mixer using
the above instructions.

The outlet stream is created in the

same way as the inlet streams.
However, create the outlet stream
from the red outlet arrow on the
mixer. (If you wish to create
multiple outlet streams, continue
to use the outlet arrow on the
mixer.) Enter "Product" in the
stream ID box for the outlet steam.

If for some reason you wish to

modify an object or a stream, click
on the arrow at the bottom left
corner, or right click on your
mouse.
NowThenyou click on the
are ready to desired
begin entering
stream. Next, right click
the numerical date. on that
same stream and a list of options
will Click
appear.on the Next button to begin
entering data. This button is blue and
Nowisthe diagram
located is finished
in the tool bar and
at the top of
the numerical
the window.data will be entered.

Design-Spec 5/13
 Click Ok.

If this box doesn’t

appear it is because
your flowsheet isn’t
complete. A box will
If this screen appears, enter
theninappear
a telling you
title for the simulation and
whatclick
part of the
on the Next button. flowsheet is missing.

If it doesn’t you can find it by

clicking on Setup, which is found
on the left hand side of the input
screen. However, completing the
Setup form isn’t manditory.

Once finished inputting a title,

Click Next.

In the Component Name box

enter the two components for this
problem: isobutane and
isobutylene (isobutene). Note
that the data bank doesn’t
recognize the name isobutene,
hence isobutylene is entered
because it is the same compound
and it is in the data bank. Enter
these names in the component
name column. The names in the
component ID column are aliases.

Design-Spec 6/13
Click Next.

At this screen, enter in NRTL for

the "base method” as we have
done before in other simulations.
This screen is under the
Specifications sub-directory of
the Properties section.

Click Next.

This screen is asking you if you are

ready to go to the next required step.
Click Ok.

Aspen will now ask you for the

FEED stream information. (Note
how the title bar indicates which
input form you are in.) Enter a
temperature and a pressure of
your choice. Next, enter the
known flow rate of isobutane in
the Total Flow box (make sure
that you are using the right units).
Also, Aspen Plus requires some
composition info for the feed

Design-Spec 7/13
stream. For this example, in the Composition box, select the Mole-Frac and input 1 in
the Value box for isobutane.
Click on the Next button.

The next screen will be the input

screen for the Recycle stream.
(Look at the title bar if you are
unsure of which form you are in.)
Once again enter in a temperature
and pressure of your choice as well
as the known mole fractions.
Since we don't know the flow rate
of this stream, just enter in a guess
as was done here. The guess does
not matter because we will design-
spec will iterate to find this value
later.
Enter in a guess.

After all the information is entered,

click the Next button

This screen is asking for the flash

options for the mixer, however, if
you look in the lower left hand of
the window it says that the input is
complete. Therefore, it isn’t
necessary to input anything on this
screen. Simply click next.

Continue entering information and clicking the Next button until you arrive at this screen.
Here is where Aspen will ask you if you want to run a simulation. At this point, we don't
want to run the simulation so click the Cancel button.

Design-Spec 8/13
The next step is to click on the Data button from the toolbar. Go to Flowsheeting options
and then Design-Spec (shown below). This will take you to the Design-Spec mode in
Aspen Plus.

This is the first window of the

Design-Spec mode in Aspen. We
want to create a new design-spec
so click on the New button.

Design-Spec 9/13
 Aspen will now ask you to name a
variable. You can give a name of
your choice or choose the default
name that Aspen has provided.

Click OK after choosing a name.

It is necessary to create
two new variables. The
When
variables created hereyou
areenter a variable, the
the flowrate ofscreen
the at the left will show the
Recycle streaminput
and page
the for the variable. In the
flowrate of theDesign-Spec
Product mode, you must
stream becausedefine
thosethe
are“specified variable” as
both unknown.well as the “manipulated variable”.
In this example, the unknown flow
To create a newrate of the recycle stream will be
variable
the button.
click on the New manipulated variable. The
knowacomposition,
Here you can enter name mole fraction,
of the
for the variable. product stream will be the
In this
example Recycl variable
was specified.
chosen.

The next step is to enter in the type

of variable. If you click on the
arrow you will see a list of choices.
The manipulated variable is given
the arbitrary name, “RECYCL” It
represents the unknown flow rate of
the recycle stream. The type of
variable is inputted as
“Stream-Var” which stands for
stream variable. Use this choice
when your variable is a property of
the stream, i.e. temperature,
pressure, flow rate, etc.

Design-Spec 10/13
 After entering the type of variable,
Aspen will then ask for the location of
the variable. In this case, we need to
define the name of the stream
associated with this variable. Enter
“Recycle” for the stream location.
The Substream cell will then appear.
The default is “mixed” and should be
left unchanged. Finally, if we define
the type of variable as a Stream-Var,
we also need to specify the property
variable. In this case the variable is a
molar flow rate, so we enter MOLE-
FLOW for the last cell. At this point,
the screen should be complete and we
can move on to the next screen.

Before moving on, we need to

define the specified variable that is
the mole-fraction of isobutane in
the product stream. Do this by
creating a new variable the same
way as the RECYCL variable was
created.

At left is the input screen for the

mole fraction variable.

After both variables are entered, go

to the Spec folder.

Design-Spec 11/13
 The screen at left is where the
value of the “specified variable” is
stated. Aspen asks for the name of
the variable you wish to specify.
At the “Spec” cell, enter the name
of the variable that you want to
specify., i.e., ANEP. Now enter
the target value for the variable
which is 0.95. This is the mole-
fraction of isobutane in the product
stream. The mole-fraction in the
product stream is 0.95. Finally, we
select the tolerance, an arbitrary
value indicating the accuracy of
Aspen’s result. Click the Next
button.

The last screen of the design-spec

mode is where we set the limits of
the manipulated variable. The left-
hand side is similar to the definition
screen. The input is much the same.
All we need to do is set the upper
and lower boundaries for the
manipulated variable. These values
are educated guesses.
For our example, the limits were set
from 1 to 200.

After all the information is entered,

click the next button.

The simulation is ready to run so go ahead and click the OK button.

Design-Spec 12/13
Here are the results. The Recycle stream flow rate came out to be 33.78 Kmol/hr. One
can also notice that Aspen calculated the product stream flow rate as well. This was
originally an unknown. Even though we didn’t define this variable, Aspen still calculates
the mass balance simultaneously along side the Design-spec. Click on the “>>” button at
the top.

If you create a Design-Spec and

run a simulation, you should
always check this screen. This
will tell you if Aspen converged
on a value or not.
If convergence was not achieved,
it usually means you need to
change the limits of your
manipulated variable.

Design-Spec 13/13