Mechanical and Thermal Operations

Code

Course teacher

Associate teachers

Status of the course

Course objectives

To acquaint the students with mechanisms which follow performance of individual mechanical and thermal operation and with the state of product during transformation of material systems. Enables the students to apply general procedure to design equipment and to choose optimal process conditions taking into account energy costs and product quality.

Course enrolment requirements and entry competences required for the course

Learning outcomes expected at the level of the course (4 to 10 learning outcomes)

After passing the exam the student is expected to know:
- explain fundamental principles of mechanical and of thermal operations,
- recognize the major resistance during the performance of individual operation and explain how to improve operation performance,
- the functional dependence of the characteristics of a given system using equations for process dimensioning,
- suggest the most common used equipments for particular operation and explain their working principle,
- bring up some of the most common operating problems encountered in the mechanical and heat transfer operations.

Course content broken down in detail by weekly class schedule (syllabus)

1st week: Mechanical and thermal operations in the process engineering. . Elementary principles of mechanical operations. Separation operations which include mass and heat transfer.
2nd week: Introduction to particle size characterization. The characterization of dispersion systems. Representing of the extent of mixing and the state of dispersivity.
3th week: Gravity sedimentation process, gravity classifiers and thickeners and their design.
4th week: Centrifugal sedimentation process. Equipment for centrifugal sedimentation.
5th week: Centrifugal filters. Hydrocyclone geometries and operational conditions.
6th week: Size reduction operation; crushing and milling operations. Equipment for size reduction.
7th week: Solid-gas filtration and types of filters. Electrostatic precipitation. Mechanism of an electrostatic precipitator. Mechanisms of scrubbing and types of scrubbers
8th week: Basic concepts of adsorption. Adsorber design.
9th week. Theory of crystallization.
10th week: Industrial crystallization equipment.
11th week: Leaching. Leaching equipment.
12th week: Extraction. Extraction equipment.
13th week: Membrane separation processes. Membrane structure. Elementary principles of ultrafiltration, electrodialysis and reverse osmosis.
14th week: Mixing in heterogeneous system. Solid-liquid mixing; suspension of floating and settling solids.
15th week: Mixing in heterogeneous system. Gas-liquid dispersion.
Laboratory exercise:
Granulometric characterization of dispersed systems by analytical functions. Gravity settling processes - determination of sedimentation rate of suspension.
Milling- determination of reduction degree
Crystallization: determination of kinetics of nucleation and crystal growth,
Mixing – determination of influence of operating conditions on homogenization time and complete suspension state.
Adsorption – Influence of temperature and adsorbent surface area on adsorption rate
Extraction – determination of the numbers of extraction stages
Field work:
Gravity sedimentation - Optimization of operating conditions of the circular gravity thickener (wastewater treatment plant, Trilj)
Gravity sedimentation - Optimization of operating conditions of the horizontal gravity thickener (wastewater treatment plant, Sinj)
Determination of suspension flow in the disc type centrifuge (treatment plant oily water Cian - Solin).
Determination of the optimal working conditions of the centrifuge with a helical-conveyor (treatment plant oily water Cian - Solin).
Milling: process control of in industrial ball mill (Cemex, Kaštel Sućurac).
Solid-gas filtration: process parameters control of the bag filters and electrofilters (CEMEX - Kastel Sućurac)

Format of instruction:

Student responsibilities