In order to understand UniSim, you gotta understand Honeywell Process.
About Honeywell Process
Honeywell Process is the branch of Honeywell which deals with Process Engineering & Industry.
It has several types of products for several types of industries, but for now, lets stick to Chemical Processes & UniSim.
It can be said that UniSim is one of the major competitors of AspenTech Software, specially HYSYS. Check out the following video of a Process being modeled in UniSim.
Do you think Honeywell’s UniSim is similar to AspenTech’s HYSYS? Well, actually they are pretty related…
Following a 2004 ruling by the United States Federal Trade Commission, AspenTech was forced to divest its Hyprotech assets, including HYSYS source code.
Then, Honeywell bought several products and also hired some of HYSYS developers, which lead to the production of their own product: UniSim.
The divestment agreement specified that AspenTech would retain rights to market and develop most Hyprotech products (including HYSYS) royalty-free.
An important note: 60% of UniSim were HYSYS users!
UniSim Products
There are plenty of products related to UniSim, just as AspenTech has plenty of products related to HYSYS & Plus.
Here you can find a list of common tools:
- UNISIM®DESIGN: UniSim Design is the core steady state flowsheeting environment.
- UNISIM DYNAMIC OPTION: UniSim Dynamic Option provides dynamic simulation capability and is fully integrated within the UniSim Design environment.
- UNISIM CASE LINKER: UniSim Case Linker Allows users to link dynamics cases on multiple CPUs.
- UNISIM EO (EQUATION ORIENTED): UniSim EO is a simulation environment under which equations are solved simultaneously to reach solutions faster, making it suitable for both design and optimization applications.
- UNISIM OPTIMIZE: UniSim Optimize is an option in addition to the optimizer which is offered with UniSim Design.
- UNISIM REFINING REACTORS: UniSim Refining Reactors are unit operations built within the UniSim EO environment and represent kinetic, medium-high fidelity unit operations that reflect refinery conversion units.
- Common “Reactor Units”
- UniSim Hydrocracker
- UniSim Hydrotreater
- UniSim Catalytic Reformer
- UniSim Isomerization
- Reactor UniSim
- Alkylation Reactor
- Other Products:
- FLARE
- BLOWDOWN
- GASIFIER
- (PRESSURE RELIEF SYSTEM)
- SPIRAL WOUND TUBE BUNDLE
- GASIFIER
- THERMOWORKBENCH
- EXCHANGERNET
- HEAT EXCHANGERS
Advantages & Disadvantages
I haven’t worked that much on UniSim as I only got contact with it back in 2012-2013 so this is based on my experience:
Advantages
- Excellent for Petorleum Refining & Petrochemicals
- Good model fit for Models
- Nice GUI, pretty similar to HYSYS’s
- User friendly
- Excellent HYSYS to UniSim converter
- Offers FREE TRIAL
Disadvantages
- Not extensively used compared to its competition (HYSYS)
- Will not be a typical tool in college / university labs
- Some Thermo Packages might not be available on UniSim
- Not so many “help material” online (tutorials, videos, books, etc..)
Have you tried UniSim before? Please share your experience in the comment section below! Please try to add the good, the bad and the ugly =)