Analysis of a Work Exchanger Network

In the last few decades, heat exchanger networks have been widely adopted to recover thermal energy. Recently, mass exchanger networks have gained attention for recovering useful materials. By analogy, another class of exchanger networks, termed work exchanger networks (WEN’s), is conceivable for recovering mechanical energy. In the present work, the concept of the WEN is introduced. The WEN consists of a number of work exchangers, each of which serves to exchange mechanical energy between a high-pressure stream and a low-pressure stream. By applying the basic principles of energy balance and thermodynamics laws, the necessary and sufficient conditions are derived to identify feasible stream matching in work exchangers. A comprehensive analysis of stream match mode gives rise to various heuristic rules useful for WEN synthesis. Our focus is on the analysis, rather than the synthesis, of the WEN. This work lays a foundation to the development of a systematic WEN synthesis methodology.