What can Chemcad do?

Chemcad is a modular chemical process simulation software used by engineers to design, optimize, and test chemical plants digitally. Acting as a virtual plant, it calculates precise mass and energy balances, models complex chemical reactions, and simulates multi-component separations like distillation.

Engineers leverage its deep thermodynamic database to size industrial equipment—including heat exchangers, piping networks, and vessels—and design critical emergency safety relief systems using DIERS standards. With both steady-state and dynamic simulation capabilities, CHEMCAD allows companies across the oil, chemical, and pharmaceutical sectors to troubleshoot operations, predict time-dependent behaviors, and improve plant efficiency safely and cost-effectively.

Who can use Chemcad?

CHEMCAD is primarily used by chemical engineers and related technical professionals to model, simulate, and optimize chemical processes. Because of its modular architecture and vast thermodynamic libraries, its user base spans across industry, consulting, and academia.

Innovations

Chemcad Highlights

Chemcad Highlights

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Functionalities

Chemcad Functionalities

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Steady-State Simulation (CC-STEADY)

This is the backbone of the software, used to design new processes and optimize existing ones under continuous operating conditions.

• Mass and Energy Balances: Automatically calculates heat and material balances (HMB) across complex plant flowsheets.
• Extensive Unit Operations Library: Includes built-in models for distillation columns, chemical reactors (kinetic, equilibrium, Gibbs), heat exchangers, compressors, pumps, valves, and piping networks.
• Process Optimization: Features built-in optimization tools to maximize yield, minimize energy consumption, or look for specific economic trade-offs based on user-defined constraints.

Dynamic Simulation (CC-DYNAMICS)

Moves beyond steady-state to model how a chemical system changes over time.

• Operability and Safety Studies: Simulates plant startup, shutdown, and upset conditions (e.g., power failure or runaway reactions).
• Batch Processing: Models batch distillation, batch reactors, and semi-batch operations, which are critical for pharmaceuticals and specialty chemicals.
• PID Control Loop Tuning: Allows engineers to add controllers, control valves, and sensors to the flowsheet to test control strategies before physical implementation.

Heat Exchanger Design (CC-THERM)

An add-on utility that goes beyond simple heat balancing to perform rigorous thermal and hydraulic design of heat exchangers.

• Shell-and-Tube / Air-Cooled / Plate: Designs and rates equipment against industry standards (like TEMA).
• Fouling & Pressure Drop: Calculates localized fluid velocities, pressure drops, and fouling factors to ensure the physical exchanger won’t fail or plug.

Thermodynamics and Physical Properties

Accurate chemical modeling depends entirely on underlying physics. CHEMCAD includes a massive, deeply integrated thermodynamic engine:

• Pure Component Database: Contains physical property data for thousands of chemical compounds.
• Thermodynamic Methods: Supports industry-standard property packages including Predictive PR (Peng-Robinson), SRK, NRTL, UNIQUAC, and UNIFAC for vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE), liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE), and electrolytes.
• Data Regression: Allows engineers to input raw laboratory data to regress and calculate unique binary interaction parameters for custom chemical mixtures.

Batch (CC-BATCH)

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