In the use of this textbook and CD-ROM, students and instructors are advised to take advantage of the following six features:
Feature 1 - Coverage of Systematic Process Design
The textbook is organized around the key steps in product and process design shown in Figure 1.2. These steps reflect current practice and provide a sound sequence of instruction, yet with much flexibility in permitting the student and instructor to place emphasis on preferred subjects.
Students can study the chapters in Part One in sequence. Although they provide many examples and exercises, the CD-ROM can be referred to for details of the process simulators. Chapters in Parts Two, Three, and Four can be studied as needed. There are many cross-references throughout the text - especially to reference materials needed when carrying out designs. For example, students can begin to learn heuristics for heat integration in Chapter 3, learn algorithmic methods in Chapter 10, learn the strategies for designing heat exchangers and estimating their costs in Part Three (Chapters 13 and 16), and learn the importance of examining the controllability of heat-exchanger networks in Part Four.
Instructors
can begin with Part One and design their courses to cover the other chapters as
desired. Because each group of students has a somewhat different background
depending on the subjects covered in prior courses, the textbook is organized to
give instructors much flexibility in their choice of subject matter and the
sequence in which it is covered. Furthermore, design instructors often have
difficulty deciding on a subset of the many subjects to be covered. This book
provides sufficiently broad coverage to permit the instructor to emphasize
certain subjects in lectures and homework assignments, leaving others as
reference materials to be used by the students when carrying out their design
projects. In a typical situation, when teaching the students to generate design
alternatives, select a base-case design, and carry out its analysis, the
textbook enables the instructor to place emphasis on one or more of the
following subjects: synthesis of chemical reactor networks (Chapter 6),
synthesis of separation trains (Chapter 7), energy efficiency (lost work
analysis and heat and power integration - Chapters 9 and 10), process unit
design (e.g., heat exchangers - Chapter 13), and controllability assessment
(Part Four).
Fe
This textbook introduces the key steps in product design with numerous examples.
Students can begin in Sections 1.1 and 1.2 to learn about industrial and consumer products, the idea generation stage, methods of stimulating innovation in product design, and the special attributes of pharmaceutical product design. In Chapter 2, they can learn to find chemicals and chemical mixtures having desired properties and performance; that is, to carry out molecular-structure design. Chapter 3 shows how to synthesize a pharmaceutical process for the manufacture of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), and Chapter 4 introduces the methods of batch process simulation for the process. Then, they can turn to Chapter 12 to learn how to optimize the design and scheduling of batch processes. Finally, Chapter 19 expands on the steps for product design and shows how to utilize them in designing several configured industrial and consumer products, including a hemodialysis device, a solar desalination unit, a hand warmer, silicon coated chips, automotive fuel cells, and environmentally safe refrigerants.
Instructors
can create a course in product design using the materials and exercises referred
to in the preceding paragraph. The
product designs in Chapter 19 can be expanded upon and/or used as the basis of
design projects for student design teams.
Feature 3 - Transition from Heuristics to Algorithmic Approaches
Process
synthesis is introduced mostly using heuristics in Part One (Chapters 3 and 5),
whereas Part Two provides more detailed algorithmic methods for chemical reactor
network synthesis, separation train synthesis, heat and power integration, mass
integration, and the optimal design and sequencing of batch processes.
This feature enables the student to begin carrying out process designs using easy to understand rules of thumb when studying Part One. As these ideas are mastered, the student can learn algorithmic approaches that enable him or her to produce better designs. For example, Chapter 3 introduces two alternative sequences for the separation of a three-component mixture (in the vinyl chloride process), whereas Chapter 7 shows how to generate and evaluate many alternatives for the separation of multicomponent mixtures, both ideal and nonideal.
This
organization provides the instructor the flexibility to emphasize those subjects
most useful for his or her students. Part One can be covered fairly quickly,
giving the students enough background to begin work on a design project. This
can be important at schools where only one semester is allotted for the design
course. Then, as the students are working on their design projects, the
instructor can take up more systematic, algorithmic methods, which can be
applied to improve their designs. In a typical situation, when covering Part
One, the instructor would not cover nonideal separations, such as azeotropic,
extractive, or reactive distillations. Consequently, most students would begin
to create simple designs involving reactors followed by separation trains. After
the instructor covers the subject matter in Chapter 7, the students would begin
to take advantage of more advanced designs.
Feature 4 - Integration of Simulation in Design
Process simulators, steady state, dynamic, and batch, are used throughout the textbook (ASPEN PLUS, HYSYS.Plant, CHEMCAD, PRO/II, ASPEN DYNAMICS, BATCH PLUS, and SUPERPRO DESIGNER). This permits access to large physical property, equipment, and cost data bases and the examination of aspects of numerous chemical processes. Emphasis is placed on the usage of simulators to obtain data and perform routine calculations throughout.
Through the use of the process simulators, students learn how easy it is to obtain data and perform routine calculations. They learn effective approaches to building up knowledge about a process through simulation. The CD-ROM provides the students with the details of the methods used for property estimation and equipment modeling. They learn to use simulators intelligently and to check their results. For example, in Chapter 3, examples show how to use simulators to assemble a preliminary data base and to perform routine calculations, when computing heat loads, heats of reaction, and vapor/liquid equilibria. Then, in Chapter 4, two examples show how to use the simulators to assist in the synthesis of toluene hydrodealkylation and monochlorobenzene separation processes. Virtually all of the remaining chapters show examples of the use of simulators to obain additional information, including equipment sizes, costs, profitability analyses, and the performance of control systems.
Because the book and CD-ROM contain so many routine examples of
how the simulators are useful in building up a process design, the instructor
has time to emphasize other aspects of process design. Through the examples and
multimedia instruction on the CD-ROM, with emphasis on ASPEN PLUS and
HYSYS.Plant, the students obtain the details they need to use the simulators
effectively, saving the instructor class time, as well as time answering
detailed questions as the students prepare their designs. Consequently, the
students obtain a better understanding of the design process and are exposed to
a broader array of concepts in process design. In a typical situation, when
creating a base-case design, students use the examples in the text and the
encyclopedic modules and tutorials on the CD-ROM to learn how to obtain physical
property estimates, heats of reaction, flame temperatures, and phase
distributions. Then, students learn to create a reactor section, using the
simulators to perform routine material and energy balances. Next, they create a
separation section and eventually add recycle. Thanks to the coverage of the
process simulators in Part One and the CD-ROM, the instructor would review only
the highlights in class.
Feature 5 - Coverage of Detailed Equipment Design, Cost Estimation and Profitability Analysis
Part Three includes chapters that provide instruction and examples of the design of heat exchangers, multistage and packed towers, and pumps, compressors, and expanders. In addition, Chapter 16 provides guidelines for selecting processing equipment and equations for estimating the purchase costs of a broad array of equipment items. Furthermore, this chapter shows how to use the Icarus Process Evaluator (IPE), with the process simulators, to estimate purchase costs and the total permanent investment for a chemical plant.
Students can use the chapters in Part Three when carrying out their design projects. In this book, most of the information they need is provided for estimating equipment sizes, purchase costs, and operating costs, and for carrying out profitability analyses.
Instructors can use the chapters on equipment design to supplement the
subjects covered in earlier courses, selecting topics most appropriate for their
students.
Feature 6 - Qualitative and Quantitaive Coverage of Plantwide Controllability
To our knowledge, this design book is the first to emphasize the importance of assessing plantwide controllability. Modern computing tools are enabling practitioners and students to be more aware that processes selected on the basis of steady-state economics alone often perform poorly and are less profitable.
When studying Chapter 20, students learn that they can begin to screen processes during process synthesis by selecting the variables to be measured and adjusted and beginning to formulate control loops, but without detailed controller design. Then, in Chapter 21, well-established methods enable students to screen alternative processes using standard linear approximations, again without detailed controller design. Also, in Chapter 21, for the most promising processes, the controllers are designed and simulations are carried out to show that the linear analyses are effective. Throughout Part Four (Chapters 20 and 21), alternatives for heat-exchanger networks; heat-integrated distillation towers; stirred-tank reactor designs; and processes with reactors, separators, and recycle loops are compared to show that there are significant differences in controllability and resiliency.
From the instructor's perspective, Chapter
20 provides basic introductory material that can be taught with little effort
and little control background. Chapter 21 is more advanced. Although some
instructors will cover it thoroughly, others may prefer to select from among the
case studies to introduce their students to the effectiveness of controllability
and resiliency analysis for linearized systems. Then, even if time is not
available for the students to tune controllers and run dynamic simulations, the
case studies in Chapter 21 can be used to show the effectiveness of this
approach during process design. In a typical situation, the instructor would use
the alternative heat-exchanger networks, heat-integrated distillation towers,
reactor sequences, and/or processes with recycle to show the importance of
considering controllability in the design process.
ONE-
OR TWO-SEMESTER COURSES
In
one semester, it is possible to emphasize process design by covering Part One,
many topics in Parts Two and Three, and Chapters 20. Students solve homework
exercises and take midsemester and final exams but do not work on a
comprehensive design project. The latter is reserved for a design project course
in a second semester. Alternatively, many departments teach process design
concepts in a single course, which includes a comprehensive process design
project. For such a course, the same materials can be covered, somewhat less
thoroughly, or a subset of the subjects can be covered. The latter often applies
in departments that cover design-related topics in other courses. For example,
many departments teach economic analysis before the students take a process
design course. Other departments teach the details of equipment design in
courses on transport phenomena and unit operations. This textbook and CD-ROM are
well suited for these courses because they provide much reference material that
can be covered as needed.
For departments that teach a course in process design followed by a course in product design, this textbook provides instruction in most of the topics covered in both courses.