PSE (Process Systems Enterprise Limited)

PSENTERPRISE.COM

Process Systems Enterprise (PSE) is the world's foremost provider of Advanced Process Modeling (APM) software and services to the process industries in support of digital design and digital operations. Companies apply advanced process models to explore the process decision space rapidly and effectively, in order to reduce uncertainty and make better, faster and safer formulation, process and product design and operating decisions.

PSE's equation-oriented platform gPROMS® products include the gPROMS ProcessBuilder® flowsheeting and custom modeling environment for optimizing fluid process design and operation, the gPROMS FormulatedProducts® environment for integrated design and optimization of formulated products and their manufacturing processes, the gSAFT® advanced thermodynamics package, and the gPROMS Operational Excellence Solutions (gOES) for online plant operational monitoring, forecasting and optimization based on high-fidelity models.

PSE has worked with ANSYS, Inc. and others to pioneer hybrid APM-CFD (also known as "co-simulation") approaches that combine the key advantages of CFD and process modeling. These are embodied in a set of software interfaces that are straightforward to use and require no programming. The approaches are applied in areas where both detailed fluid flow and complex chemical phenomena need to be taken into account simultaneously, in process equipment such as catalytic reactors, crystallizers, polymerization reactors and fuel cells.

An example is in the modeling of multitubular fixed-bed catalytic reactors, where Ansys FLUENT is used for detailed shell-side temperature and hydraulic modeling, and gPROMS for detailed modeling of the multicomponent diffusion, catalytic reactions and heat transfer effects within the catalyst bed in the tubes. The combination provides unprecedented predictive accuracy that has allowed customers to, for example, design innovative reactor configurations or to develop their own reactor technology.

Similarly, hybrid multizonal/CFD approaches enable accurate, detailed predictive steady-state and dynamic modeling of crystallizers and polymerization reactors, facilitating scale-up and troubleshooting of these units. Again, such hybrid models achieve an unprecedented degree of accuracy, for example describing the entire crystal size distribution in crystallization equipment, or the combined molecular weight and particle size distributions in polymerization.

The unique advantages of PSE tools are the combination of high-fidelity process models, powerful mathematical optimization and global system analysis capabilities, high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities for rapid and robust solution of complex problems, and the ability to estimate kinetic and other parameters from experimental data.

Use of PSE’s technology and services results in faster innovation, improved process and product designs, enhanced operations, reduced risk, more effective R&D and experimental campaigns and better capture and transfer of corporate knowledge across the organisation.

PSE’s global customer base spans the oil & gas, refining, chemicals & petrochemicals, pharmaceutical, food & dairy, consumer products and energy sectors and is served by operations in the UK, USA, Japan, Switzerland and Korea, and agencies in China, Taiwan and Thailand. PSE is a spin-out of Imperial College London, and its software is used for teaching and research in over 200 universities around the world.