The ARACHNE process simulation package and its application

The British Coal Corporation, in its search for new markets for coal, undertakes research into new systems and processes for coal utilization at the Coal Research Establishment (CRE). A cost-effective means of guiding this research and development is to conduct desk studies into the technical and economic feasibility of proposed coal utilization schemes. Such work is undertaken at CRE. One of the main resources used in this work is the ARACHNE process simulation package which is the subject of this paper. First the history of the ARACHNE system and the basic structure of all ARACHNE models will be outlined. Then various features of the ARACHNE system will be described in the context of the structure of a simple model. Finally, some examples of the use of ARACHNE by British Coal will be presented