Loop Plant Modeling: An Approach to Modeling Operating Costs in the Loop Network

This paper, along with several other papers in this issue (Refs. 2-6), is concerned with the mathematical modeling of operating costs in the loop network. Specifically, models which predict the occurrence of loop network "activities" will be developed. These activities, together with their associated costs, constitute a cash flow which is a major component of the cost of the loop network. The goal of this modeling effort is to determine the effect of network design parameters on the operating cost so that the design of the network can be optimized on a total cost basis. As is evident from the number of related papers in this issue, the concept of loop network operating cost is quite important. Moreover, there are several approaches to modeling operating cost as well as several areas of application of the models. In a very general sense, a loop network operating cost model predicts the sequence of activities (and the resulting cash flow) in the loop network. Many of these activities occur in direct response to inward service orders (see Ref. 1 for definition of terms). 891