TABLE OF CONTENTS The use of computers in the design and control of process plants is now widespread. The use of safety-related computer aids is described briefly in this chapter. A more general discussion of chemical engineering computer software is contained in Lees 2nd edition; however, the availability of software is changing too fast to simply develop a list. The list would be out dated before publication. The World Wide Web with its concomitant search capability has made published software lists out dated.
Rather than provide exhaustive lists, the generic type of available software, as it applies to loss prevention will be described herein. However, reference has already been made in a number of chapters to various specialist computer codes pertinent to the technology under discussion, such as those for consequence analysis and hazard analysis.
Some of the principal codes for process plant design in CAD, or computer aided process engineering (CAPE), are now reviewed, considering first individual programs and then integrated packages.
The selection of the process is perhaps the most fundamental problem in process design and it is a tough one. An account of the developments in the computer aiding of process route selection is given in Chapter 30.
A package that furnishes physical, thermodynamic and vapour liquid equilibrium properties is an essential service package for process design. Some of the packages are part of a suite of programs, typically supporting a flow sheet simulator.
