Page 20 - Analysis, Synthesis and Design of Chemical Processes, Third Edition

Preface

This book represents the culmination of many years of teaching experience in the senior design course at
West Virginia University (WVU) and University of Nevada, Reno. Although the program at WVU has
evolved over the past 30 years and is still evolving, it is fair to say that the current program has gelled

over the past 20 years as a concerted effort by the authors to integrate design throughout the undergraduate
curriculum in chemical engineering.

We view design as the focal point of chemical engineering practice. Far more than the development of a

set of specifications for a new chemical plant, design is the creative activity through which engineers
continuously improve the operations of facilities to create products that enhance the quality of life.
Whether developing the grassroots plant, proposing and guiding process modifications, or troubleshooting
and implementing operational strategies for existing equipment, engineering design requires a broad
spectrum of knowledge and intellectual skills to be able to analyze the big picture and the minute details
and, most important, to know when to concentrate on each.

Our vehicle for helping students develop and hone their design skills is process design rather than plant
design, covering synthesis of the entire chemical process through topics relating to the preliminary sizing
of equipment, flowsheet optimization, economic evaluation of projects, and the operation of chemical
processes. The purpose of this text is to assist chemical engineering students in making the transition from
solving well-posed problems in a specific subject to integrating all the knowledge that they have gained
in their undergraduate education and applying this information to solving open-ended process problems.
Many of the nuts-and-bolts issues regarding plant design (for example, what schedule pipe to use for a
given stream or what corrosion allowance to use for a vessel in a certain service) are not covered.
Although such issues are clearly important to the practicing engineer, several excellent handbooks and
textbooks are available to address such problems, and these are cited in the text where applicable.

In the third edition, we have rearranged some of the material from previous editions, added a new chapter
on batch processing and a section on optimization of batch processes, and supplied new problems for all
of the quantitative chapters. We continue to emphasize the importance of understanding, analyzing, and

synthesizing chemical processes and process flow diagrams. To this end, we have expanded Appendix B
to include an additional seven preliminary designs of chemical processes. The CAPCOST program for
preliminary evaluation of fixed capital investment and profitability analysis has been expanded to include
more equipment. Finally, the chapters on outcomes assessment, written and oral communications, and a
written report case study have been moved to the CD accompanying the text.

The arrangement of chapters into the six sections of the book is similar to that adopted in the second
edition. These sections are as follows.
Section 1—Conceptualization and Analysis of Chemical Processes
Section 2—Engineering Economic Analysis of Chemical Processes
Section 3—Synthesis and Optimization of Chemical Processes
Section 4—Analysis of Process Performance
Section 5—The Impact of Chemical Engineering Design on Society
Section 6—Interpersonal and Communication Skills