EQUATRAN Software

EQUATRAN is a software application for solving sets of mathematical equations. It has been extensively used for many years by Japanese chemical companies and is applicable for engineering applications in the fields of chemical, mechanical, or electrical engineering.

EQUATRAN can be used in the following situations:

• Spreadsheets such as Excel are convenient to use to solve simple problems, but for more complex problems it can be time-consuming to set up. Equations must be rearranged, careful thought must be given to the order in which equations are solved, and iterative calculations can be time-consuming. It is difficult to track the calculation logic in the spreadsheet if the problem contains many variables, and mistakes can easily be made which may go unnoticed.
• Programming languages such as Visual Basic are convenient to solve any type of engineering calculation, but the programming for daily engineering tasks for various calculations tend to consume time. As with a spreadsheet solution, complex problems need to be carefully constructed and can take a lot of time to prepare.
• For chemical engineers, a process simulator is rigorous and makes it easy to calculate unit operations such as distillation. This is an appropriate tool for an engineering department, but engineers in other departments such as process development and production needs to handle many other unit operations. Process simulators offer rigid and inflexible models and are often difficult to customise.
• It is sometimes necessary to develop your own model to simulate the phenomena and improve operations in the plant. EQUATRAN offers a flexible environment to solve simultaneous non-linear equations, differential equations and to solve optimisation problems.

EQUATRAN can perform equation solving using mathematical language similar to that we all learned at school. For instance "2x+3y=9" can be written "2*x+3*y=9" and "dC/dt=-kC" can be written "C′=-k*C". Simply type the equations, and provided that the system is solvable, EQUATRAN will return the values of all variables.

It also has the capability to optimise an objective function, which for example, can be used to find the reaction kinetic parameters for experimental data with known reaction equations.

After the 30-day trial period a licence should be purchased. Academic licensing is available.

The support section of this website includes many solution examples to help new users to get started.