MaximaLabs
All guides
Gas plant, Mont Belvieu, Texas, USA

How to simulate lpg dividing-wall splitter

Propane / isobutane / n-butane separated in one thermally-coupled dividing-wall column (shortcut splits): three on-spec products from a single shell. From the ChemSep casebook (LPG_DWC, Gas Processing Dec 2018).

FEED
feed
top
side
bot
DWC
C3
IC4
NC4
  1. 1
    Open the ready-made model

    Open the "LPG dividing-wall splitter" model in the MaximaLabs workspace — no install, no license. It loads live on the canvas, ready to edit and run.

  2. 2
    Confirm the thermodynamics

    This process is modeled with the PENG-ROBINSON property package over propane, isobutane, n_butane — already selected, so the phase equilibrium and enthalpy are physically consistent from the first run.

  3. 3
    Review the flowsheet

    The flowsheet chains DWC. Every block is a real, solvable unit op you can reconfigure on the canvas.

  4. 4
    Run the simulation

    Click Run. The deterministic solver converges the material and energy balances (recycles included) and fills the live stream table — the AI never invents a number.

  5. 5
    Read the results and iterate

    Inspect the converged streams, tweak a spec, and re-run — or ask the AI copilot to explain a result or diagnose a failed solve in plain English.

What you'll build
Thermodynamics
PENG-ROBINSON
Components
propane, isobutane, n_butane
Unit operations
DWC
Open this model in the workspace

Opens live on the canvas — free, no install.

Explore the model & flowsheet

Frequently asked questions

What does the LPG dividing-wall splitter model simulate?
Propane / isobutane / n-butane separated in one thermally-coupled dividing-wall column (shortcut splits): three on-spec products from a single shell. From the ChemSep casebook (LPG_DWC, Gas Processing Dec 2018).
Which thermodynamic method does it use?
The PENG-ROBINSON property package, over propane, isobutane, n_butane — already selected. You can switch the method on the canvas before running.
Which unit operations are in the flowsheet?
It chains DWC. Every block is a real, solvable unit operation you can reconfigure, add to, or remove.
Do I need to install software or buy a license?
No. LPG dividing-wall splitter runs entirely in your browser on MaximaLabs — free, no install, no license. Open the model to load it live and run the deterministic solver.

More guides like this

Pekin, Illinois, USA

Ethanol–water distillation

An 8-stage column concentrating ethanol overhead toward the azeotrope (the headline demo).

Tray efficiency — real trays vs ideal stages

The same ethanol–water column solved with a Murphree vapor tray efficiency of 0.7 instead of ideal equilibrium stages. A real sieve/valve tray never reaches full vapor-liquid equilibrium — the vapor leaving it only partly approaches the equilibrium composition with the tray liquid, mixing in un-equilibrated vapor from the tray below: y = E·K·x + (1−E)·y_below (Murphree 1925). At E = 0.7 each of these 12 trays does 70% of an ideal stage's work, so the overhead ethanol is lower than an equilibrium column of the same tray count would predict — which is exactly why a real column needs more trays than a shortcut (ideal-stage) calculation says. Both HYSYS and Aspen RadFrac expose this per-tray efficiency; set murphree_efficiency back to 1.0 to recover the ideal-stage column. The efficiency auto-selects the component-flow Naphtali-Sandholm solver (the reduced-form solvers carry no explicit per-tray VLE row to apply an efficiency to).

Reference model

Distillation column startup dynamics (feed-rate step)

An 8-stage ethanol-water column at a reduced startup feed rate. Solves the steady state normally; switch to the Dynamic solve mode with weir/level-controlled hydraulics enabled and step the feed rate up (e.g. 6 → 9 mol/s) to watch the bottoms draw genuinely rebalance to the new throughput as the tray inventories fill — a feed-rate disturbance no fixed-hydraulics dynamic model (incl. this same column's own default rigorous mode) can show at all. Honest bound: the vapor traffic is held at its steady-state value in this mode, so the distillate draw (condenser-level-controlled off vapor inflow) does not move for a feed-rate-only step — only the liquid/bottoms side responds.

Gas plant, Permian Basin, Texas, USA

Perry Ch.13 Example 3: butane/pentane splitter

A simple two-cut distillation splitting butane overhead from pentane bottoms, from Chapter 13 of Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook.

Gas plant, Permian Basin, Texas, USA

Perry Ch.13 Example 4: sloppy-butane three-cut splitter

A three-cut column with a side draw producing a deliberately 'sloppy' (off-spec, cheaper-to-make) butane cut between a propane overhead and a pentane-plus bottoms, from Chapter 13 of Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook.

Reference model (ChemSep)

Acetone–water distillation

A 12-stage column recovers acetone overhead from a dilute aqueous solvent-recovery feed — a common industrial acetone/solvent-recycling duty.

Stop fighting legacy software. Build your first flowsheet in 60 seconds.