Aspen Plus

Getting Started with Aspen Simulation Workbook V7.3 with Aspen Plus ®
A Brief Tutorial (supplement to training and online documentation)
Julie Levine, Associate Product Marketing Professional, Aspen Technology, Inc. David Tremblay, Senior Director Product Management, Aspen Technology, Inc.

© 2012 Aspen Technology, Inc. AspenTech®, aspenONE®, the aspenONE® logo, the Aspen leaf logo, andOPTIMIZE are trademarks of Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. 11-2148-1012

About AspenTech
AspenTech is a leading supplier of software that optimizes process manufacturing—for energy, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, engineering and construction, and other industries that manufacture and produce products from a chemical process.With integrated aspenONE® solutions, process manufacturers can implement best practices for optimizing their engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain operations. As a result, AspenTech customers are better able to increase capacity, improve margins, reduce costs, and become more energy efficient. To see how the world’s leading process manufacturers rely on AspenTech to achieve their operationalexcellence goals, visit www.aspentech.com.

Getting Started with Aspen Simulation Workbook V7.3 with Aspen Plus ®

Introduction
Aspen Simulation Workbook (ASW) is a powerful tool that allows Aspen Plus and Aspen HYSYS® simulation experts to easily create a clean user interface for their models in Microsoft Excel®. This makes it easy for other users to manipulate complex Aspen Plus and AspenHYSYS simulations without being intimately familiar with the models themselves, or even the software used to create them. Using Aspen Simulation Workbook allows different members of the design team to communicate effectively, without complex technology barriers. Ultimately, this results in more efficient use of time for the entire team. This document serves as a simple “getting started” guide,taking you through the most common progression of how an Aspen Plus simulation designer will create a workbook with ASW and how an end user will manage the workbook. This is not meant to be used as a stand-alone reference document. We would recommend that a range of other resources be called upon to give the new user a comprehensive view of how to use Aspen Simulation Workbook. These may include: •AspenTech support website (http://support.aspentech.com) - which contains a wide range of knowledge base items and provides answers to frequently asked questions • AspenTech courseware available in on-line and in-person versions - which provide formal training on process modeling and economic evaluation • AspenTech business consultants • Pre-recorded tutorials and webinars that provide another viewof the information contained in this document (refer to the AspenTech Support website: http://support.aspentech.com) This document covers Aspen Simulation Workbook used with Aspen Plus. This guide assumes that the user has Aspen Simulation Workbook V7.3 and Aspen Plus V7.3 or higher installed on their computer.

First Steps
Familiarize Yourself with the ASW Tab

Figure 1: The ASW Tab openedin Microsoft Excel 2010

© 2012 Aspen Technology, Inc. AspenTech®, aspenONE®, the aspenONE® logo, the Aspen leaf logo, and OPTIMIZE are trademarks of Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. 11-2148-1012

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Getting Started with Aspen Simulation Workbook V7.3 with Aspen Plus ®

The ASW tab is organized into five groups. Thefollowing describes the general purpose of each: • “Design” – Create and manipulate objects in the workbook • “Simulations” – Determine which simulation is active if the workbook is connected to more than one • “Run” – Run, pause, and reinitialize the simulation from Microsoft Excel • “Tags” – Control tags that relate plant data to simulation variables • “Help” – Access the product support site...