Page 17 - Plant design and economics for chemical engineers

PROLOGUE

THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF UNITS 61)
As the United States moves toward acceptance of the International System of
Units, or the so-called SI units, it is particularly important for the design
engineer to be able to think in both the SI units and the U.S. customary units.
From an international viewpoint, the United States is the last major country to
accept SI, but it will be many years before the U.S. conversion will be
sufficiently complete for the design engineer, who must deal with the general
public, to think and write solely in SI units. For this reason, a mixture of SI and
U.S. customary units will be found in this text.
For those readers who are not familiar with all the rules and conversions
for SI units, Appendix A of this text presents the necessary information. This
appendix gives descriptive and background information for the SI units along
with a detailed set of rules for SI usage and lists of conversion factors presented
in various forms which should be of special value for chemical engineering
usage.
Chemical engineers in design must be totally familiar with SI and its rules.
Reading of Appendix A. is recommended for those readers who have not
worked closely and extensively with SI.