The principle of work exchange process is similar with that of heat exchange process and mass exchange process.In this study

pinch technology

which is widely used in heat exchange network and mass exchange network

was extended to work exchange network

and a novel problem table method was developed.In this method

pressure regions were divided according to decreasing order of pressures of all sink streams and source streams.With the sufficient and deficient work of each region calculated in turn

pinch point and minimum work consumption could be targeted simultaneously.Thus

these parameters provided a design target for the work exchange network.Furthermore

the efficiency of the work exchange process could be taken into consideration in the calculation of the deficient work.A synthetic ammonia plant with two work source streams and three work sink streams was analyzed by this method

and the results showed that the energy that could be recovered through work exchange was more than 99% of the total energy required by the work sink streams

and more than 72% of the total work that could be done by all source streams.