Process Design

Code

Course teacher

Associate teachers

Status of the course

Course objectives

Students will know the basic principles and the methodology of process equipment design. They will also acquire knowledge of the methodology used in chemical process industry to evaluate the ultimate commercial feasibility.

Course enrolment requirements and entry competences required for the course

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

It is expected that the outcome of learning to provide knowledge about:
- steps in the design and modification of chemical processes
- evaluation of the optimum plant location
- process research and development in the laboratory and pilot plant facility
- scaling up of process and apparatus of the chemical process industry
- selection and design of process equipment
- estimation of financial viability of the investment
- synthesis, optimization and flowsheet simulation
- synthesis of heat exchanger network using pinch analysis
- sizing of heat transfer, continuous distillation of multicomponent mixtures, separated, pipelines.

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

1 week: Introduction. Design, optimization, sustainable development. Steps in the design and development of new processing plants. The project leader.
2 week: From idea to product. Idea. Preliminary works . A feasibility study . Numerical examples. Process development and evaluation. Selection and design of project equipment. Project engineering. Process engineering. Construction of the plant.
3 week: Plant location. Location factors. Methods of evaluation of location factors. Numerical examples.
4 week: The process development. Process research in laboratory and industrial scale.
5 week: Scaling up of process and apparatus of the chemical process industry. Similarity low. Models and scaling up methods in chemical engineering. Numerical examples.
6 week: The rating process. The rating of the financial performance of investments. Estimation of investment costs. Estimation of production costs. Methods for the evaluation of financial viability of the investment. Numerical examples.
7 week: Process design. Synthesis, optimization and flowsheet simulation. Material and energy balance. Numerical examples.
8 week: Synthesis and process integration. A hierarchical approach. Model of onion. A holistic approach to the integration process. Pinch analysis. Synthesis of heat exchanger network by pinch analysis.
9 week: A graphical method. Analytical method of temperature intervals . Performance of heat exchanger network above and below pincha. Numerical examples.
10 week: Heat transfer. Classification. Analysis of the processes of heat transfer. Calculation of the heat exchanger using the mean logaritam differences of temperature. Calculation of the heat exchanger using heat efficiency.
11 week: Sizing the heat exchanger. Heat calculation. Mechanical calculation. Numerical examples.
12 week. Determining the optimal thickness of insulation. A numerical example.
13 week: Sizing distillation columns. The multicomponent mixtures . The distribution of the components. Vapor-liquid equilibrium. Temperature of boiling and dew point. Calculation of Underwodova parameter  using Newton’s method. Numerical examples.
14 week: Sizing the continuous distillation of a multicomponent mixture. The heat duty of the condenser and reboiler. Numerical examples.
15 week: Sizing separators. Sizing pipelines. Numerical examples.

Format of instruction:

Student responsibilities

Attending lectures is 80%, while seminars 100% of the total hours.