A generalized digital computer program for performing process material and energy balances

A digital computer program was developed to perform material and energy balances for continuous chemical processes. The program is written in general form to permit calculations for any process, subject only to the limitations of computer memory, calculation time, and availability of user-provided subroutines to simulate the operation of each type of equipment in the process. The program was intended for use by students in the Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering of The University of Tennessee. It is expected that the equipment subroutines v/ill be written by the students prior to the use of the generalized balance program. Three types of processes were tested using abbreviated subroutines to demonstrate the program's ability to handle a wide range of process configurations, recycle parameters, etc. To permit evaluation of large processes which might exceed computer memory limitations with the basic program, a pair of alternate programs have been written to accomplish the same computations in two separate parts. The first portion will seek an optimum equipment sequence which minimizes the number of recycle parameters needed to specify the type of process considered; the second portion will perform any needed trial and error recycle calculations to evaluate process conditions for this equipment sequence.