20.500.12556/DKUM-95857 OpenHENS: an open-source tool for heat exchanger network synthesis The synthesis of heat exchanger networks (HENs) is an NP hard problem, made even more difficult by the requirement of commercial software licenses and coding ability. This paper introduces OpenHENS, a first-of-itskind open-source tool for HEN synthesis. In the literature, HEN synthesis based on mathematical programming almost exclusively relies on commercial MINLP (mixed-integer non-linear programming) solvers (e.g., BARON, Gurobi, etc.). Open source MINLP solvers, in contrast, lack the robustness, scalability and quality that are the hallmarks of commercial solvers. To overcome this challenge, OpenHENS embeds a novel three-step synthesis method that gradually increases the complexity of the model. The first two steps identify economically viable and thermodynamically feasible heat exchanger matches, removing the non-viable matches and reducing the problem size. In the third step, numerous HEN designs are obtained by evolving promising networks to obtain families of near-optimal solutions. OpenHENS was tested on thirteen benchmark problems and seven of the solutions were within 2 % of the total annualised cost (TAC) best-known solutions from literature. In eleven of the benchmark problems, OpenHENS returned more than 10 unique networks within 2 % of the best solution, enabling the engineer to select the most practical design with minimal cost difference. OpenHENS demonstrates that open-source software, when developed correctly, offers comparable performance to commercial software while promoting greater accessibility in industry. heat exchanger network process integration optimization mathematical programming open source Phyton procesna integracija optimizacija matematično programiranje odprtokodno true false true Elsevier Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/computers-and-chemical-engineering © 2025 The Author(s) Članek v reviji 2025-11-03 08:45:13 2025-11-03 08:45:14 2025-11-04 03:34:50 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 58 str. Vol. 205, [article no.] 109429 1 Feb. 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 2025-06-18 2025-09-29 2025-10-03 66:004.8 255569155 10.1016/j.compchemeng.2025.109429 0098-1354 1-s2.0-S0098135425004326-main.pdf 1-s2.0-S0098135425004326-main.pdf 1 AE70236354EA8D0629F5B6AC2179D6E8 703979987e3e9cee61364ec9b9bc9698cdc385e816bc437959c3200436c61eaf 53a852fc-b889-11f0-b13b-00155d000105 https://dk.um.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=200320 Fakulteta za kemijo in kemijsko tehnologijo 0 0 0