Energy consumption of the fluid machinery network in a circulating water system takes up a large part of energy consumption in the process industry, so optimization on the network will enhance the economic and environmental performance of the industry. In this paper, a synthesis approach is proposed to obtain the optimal network structure. The effective height curves are used as tools to perform energy analysis, so that the potential placement of water turbines and auxiliary pumps can be determined with energy benefit. Then economic optimization is carried out, by the mathematical model with the total cost as the objective function, to identify the branches for water turbines and auxiliary pumps with economic benefit. In this way, the optimal fluid machinery network structure can be obtained. The results of case study indicate that the proposed synthesis approach to optimize the fluid machinery network will obtain more remarkable benefits on economy, compared to optimizing only the water turbine network or pump network. The results under different flowrates of circulating water reveal that using a water turbine to recover power or adding an auxiliary pump to save energy in branches are only suitable to the flowrate in a certain range. (C) 2019 The Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.