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Friday, February 24, 2017

Top five courses for entry level Process Engineers

Process Engineering is much complex discipline in the field of Chemical Engineering. This field will challenge you like anything. While operating the process plant you may encounter with plethora of problems that need immediate attention, without which the result won't be pleasing. As a young engineer coming straight out of college you will have the enthusiasm and energy to prove your self in the process field. This kind of attitude is good but you are bound to do several mistakes in this period. Without knowing where to start and what to learn in the industry is the biggest dilemma that many of us are facing now a days. In order to proceed in this process field you should equip yourself with some special skills. These skills can be learn through several courses that are available to all now a days.

Here are the top 5 courses for entry level process engineers that are helpful for career progression.

1. Process Simulation Software Course

Process simulation software like Aspen Hysys, CHEMCAD,PRO II, HTRI etc., are very helpful in solving real time problems in process industry. With the help of these simulation software you can do

Optimization of a given process
Equipment sizing
Cost estimation
Process modelling
Estimation of mixture properties at various given conditions like P,V,T etc.,

Image Source : Google/AspenTech

The advantage of these simulation software is, they will calculate the real values rather than ideal values by using various property methods. Process Engineers who are familiar with this kind of simulation software will have edge in the interviews conducted for experienced process engineer jobs.
Here are some of the institutes that are offering Process Simulation software course in India.

Chemsys - Chennai

Dimensional Academy - Mumbai, Chennai

EQUINOX - Pune

AspenTech Training Center

2. Health, Safety and Environment Course

Now a days Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) courses are available everywhere (Online/Offline) to learn. These HSE courses will boost your career in Chemical Process Industry. The main objective of these courses will be providing various methods and techniques to run the process industry cleaner and safer. At the same time this course will educate the participants to identify and manage any sort of problem that occurred during the operation. Here you will be exposed to lot of case studies, after all learning from failures is the best learning. Don't forget to get a certificate if you want to pursue these courses.

Here are some HSEcourse qualifications that are available to learn

NEBOSH - National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health UK

National Safety Council, USA

Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, UK

In India you can find HSE courses at

HSEI Institute - Kerla, New Delhi

NPTEL

Indian Institute of Environment, Health & Safety Management (IIEHSM)

NIST Institute

NIFS - National Institute of Fire Engineering and Safety Management

3. Process Engineering Course

Chemical Engineering will give you a glimpse of what is what and whats happening in a process industry. But the real challenge is designing a process industry itself. It involves sizing of various equipment like vessels, reactors, heat exchangers, absorbers, distillation columns, piping, pumps etc., Designing of relief valves, knock out vessels, decanters, two phase line sizing, project organization and various types of diagrams like PFD, PID is not common thing and we don't learn those things in our college life. So in order to be a complete process design engineer its better to pursue this course. Following are some of the institutes that are offering process engineering course in India.

MIT Skills - Pune

Chemsys - Chennai

Mecci Engineers - Noida

Smart Brains - Hyderabad, Noida, Pune, Vadodara

Magnus Global Tech Education - Bangalore

Some of the institutes offer placement assistance after successful completion of the course. Please do some research before enrolling in a particular institute.

4. Microsoft Excel for Engineers Course

Microsoft Excel is a not just a application to fill some tabular columns and generating some charts based on the data, in real process world it is more than that. In a process industry you will deal with many kind of reports like Daily production report, Steam balance report, MIS report, downtime report, vendor evaluation etc., Also you will encounter with various calculations which are to be done quickly yet repeatedly. This can be better handled in Microsoft Excel. In Microsoft Excel you can do the complex calculations by using various mathematical, accounting functions. Also if you master Macros in excel you can literally do anything in Excel if you give sufficient data to Excel for processing. You can learn this course either online or offline. here are some of the best resources which I came across the internet for learning Microsoft Excel.

Chandoo.org

Lynda.com Tutorials

Youtube

Udemy

Engineers-Excel.com

Lot of resources are available for learning Microsoft Excel in online mode, this will save your time and help in easy access of the content.

5. Part Time Business Management Course

This course is especially for those who have time constraint to do full time management degree. Trust me, Process engineers with a management degree are hot cakes in job market and they have higher chances of elevation in career. Those who don't have sufficient time to engage in a full time course should opt for a part time or distance course, as this course will make you a key person from process as well as corporate side in a company. You can even do an executive MBA course after attaining sufficient experience in your job, the duration of this course is generally one year. Following links will provide you the information of some institutes that are offering part time courses in business management.

Hope the information is helpful to you, please do like the page and subscribe for RSS feed.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Excel calculator for LMTD

LMTD, Log mean temperature difference is the temperature driving force for heat transfer in flow systems. When you are calculating heat transfer by overall heat transfer coefficient (U), you should not simply multiply temperature difference of hot stream or cold stream. Multiplying this temperature difference doesn't account the overall driving force.

Pressure drop in pipe lines and fittings. Part-2

Pressure drop due to valves and fittings

In the earlier post, tutorial goes around pressure drop in pipe lines. Pressure drop arises due to skin friction and form friction. Non separated boundary layers cause skin friction whereas separated boundary layers cause form friction. In plain pipe pressure drop is due to skin friction. But in a pipe line with valves and fittings pressure drop is mainly due to form friction. the pipe lines may be connected to equipment and again pressure drop will be there in that equipment. This tutorial is restricted to pressure drop in valves and fittings only.

Pressure drop in pipe lines and fitting. Part-1

Pressure plays a prominent role in driving and arresting the fluid flow from one place to another. What exactly is this pressure? One classical definition is

Pressure is force acted per unit area

Pressure definition by Cheminnering.blogspot.com

How to design a P&ID? Part-3

Earlier two parts of designing a P&ID were from process perspective of a P&ID. Now in this present part we will deal with the instrument aspects of a P&ID. Some of the most common instruments which we are using in process industry are transmitters, gauges, indicators, control valves, on off valves etc. The parameters which we are interested may be flow, temperature, pressure, concentration etc. Before going to discuss further about instrumentation part in P&ID it is better to get familiarized with the instrumentation terms. Let’s get started

How to design a P&ID? Part-2

Pipe line representation

Pipe lines should be shown with an orthogonal arrow mark i.e, You should not mention the arrow mark in the middle of line. Always represent the arrow at the pipe right angles in the drawing.

How to design a P&ID ? Part-1

Designing a P&ID Part-1

In this part we will see the legend and symbols using in P&ID now days. Please note that the legend and symbols may vary from one process designer to another and the reader should understand that. Following sections will give a brief idea about P&ID representation.

Pipe line number

X” – AB – CDEF – GHI – J

X = Pipe line size.

AB = Service Code (Arbitrary for Chlorine I can take as CL).

CD = Last two digits of drawing number.

EF = Line sequence number.

GHI = Line material of construction.

J = Insulation thickness.

Example:

6” – CL – 0102 – CS – 40H

The above line is 6 inch pipe in chlorine service present in a drawing whose number ends with 01 and it is second such line in the drawing. Also the material of construction is Carbon Steel with 40mm thick hot insulation.

Service code, pipe material, insulation notation varies from one company to another. Some companies also use color coding to easily differentiate the lines in colored P&ID.

Area numbers

In order to easily review a section in P&ID it is always better to allot specific number for that particular unit. Consider the following example.

31: Raw material processing section.

32: Reacting section.

33: Purification section.

34: Storage/Packing/Drumming section.

So if I say, I am using a roll crusher in 31 section, I am actually referring roll crusher present in raw material processing section.

Equipment tag format

In a process industry we use lot of process equipments (pumps, vessels, exchangers, reactors etc,). Calling a pump with its true name like “Propylene glycol distillation column bottom pump” may create confusion. Also it is cumbersome enough to mention with its original name all times. So we use a notation which conveys the equipment name tidy. Generally the equipment tag name will be of the form

AN – EQ – SN

AN: Area Number

EQ: Equipment type code

SN: Sequence Number

For Example

03 C 3204

The above tag name corresponds to a fourth (04) column (C) in reacting section (32), whose area number is three (03).

Again some companies follow three digit tag number and some four digits. It is purely based on the company discretion. For equipments we can use the following notation.

Code	Equipment
A	Agitator
C	Distillation columns, absorption columns, scrubber, packed columns
D	Drums
E	Exchangers
EJ	Ejectors
F	Filter
G	Decanters, Centrifuges
H	Hydro cyclones
J	Hoppers, Bunkers
K	Compressors, Blowers
L	Vacuum pumps
M	Mixers
P	Pumps
R	Reactor
SM	Static Mixers
T	Tanks
V	Vessels

Thursday, February 5, 2015

What is a P&ID?

What is P&ID?

A P&ID or a piping and instrumentation diagram is nothing but a diagram which depicts all the pipe lines and instruments connecting various process equipment and vessels. Here in these diagrams we can see the pipe line size, service, material of construction and the line number from piping point of view. Also the number of valves and their type using for a particular project are finalized based on the P&ID. For different types of process equipment and fittings we use various symbols to differentiate their purpose. Certain operating conditions like temperature and pressure are also represented near critical areas like pressure safety valves. The above discussion revolves around the process engineering.

Coming to the instrumentation part, just think about how you will measure the flow, temperature, pressure etc., in a pipe line which is flowing at higher temperature and pressure. You can’t take a chance to measure all the parameters by your hand 24*7 and report to DCS (Distributed control system) that’s funny right. That is where you need the help of instruments like transmitters, indicators, recorders, alarms etc., if you want to know the process parameters in various places of the plant you need to mount these instruments at the respective areas. Some of them may be locally displaying instruments and some may send the parameter details to DCS. You need to show all the instruments in the P&ID with various symbols and notations for local, DCS instruments.

P&ID diagrams also embody the control mechanisms involved in the process. For example if a low level in a vessel should close the discharge line from that vessel, the level transmitter in that vessel should send a signal to the control valve in the vessel discharge line. This can be easily represented by the following drawing.

Another aspect of P&ID is the interlock representation. Interlocks are very critical and vital for the safe operation of the process plant. The open loops and closed loops look after the normal operation of the plant whereas the sequence and logic look after the emergency shutdown functions. These interlocks are also represented in the P&ID. For tutorials on P&ID development keep watching the site www.chemineering.blogspot.com.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

GATE 2015 Chemical Engineering

Gear up for the next biggest challenge in your career, GATE-2015 online application starts from September 1st 2015. GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) is a common way to enter into masters, doctorial programs and public sector undertaking (PSU) companies. This time IIT Kanpur is organizing GATE-2015. http://gate.iitk.ac.in/GATE2015

GATE-2015 Chemical Engineering (CH)

GATE 2015 chemical engineering by Chemieering.blogspot.com

It is better to start the preparation 3 to 4 months before the commencement of exam. Practice is the mantra. The more you practice the more you will be benefited. It will be useful to solve the numerical questions. The easiest way to gain more marks is to concentrate on Aptitude, English, and Mathematics. From technical side Process calculations, Chemical technology subjects are easy to gain more marks. Fluid mechanics, Process economics, thermodynamics are easier to solve next. Chemical kinetics, Heat and mass transfer subjects come in next place. The order should be decided by you ultimately based on your preparation. Follow www.Chemineering.blogspot.com to get updates on GATE-2015 and other Chemical engineering related stuff.

#Chemieering recommends the following books for GATE-2015 preparation in Chemical engineering stream.

GATE-2015 Highlights

GATE-2015 application fees is Rs 1500/- for male candidates in General/OBC category and Rs 750/- for female candidates. For SC, ST, PwD candidates the fees is Rs 750/-.
Payments have to be made through debit/ATM cards, credit cards or internet banking and e-challan only
All Supporting documents should be sent online only. No hard copy will be accepted
Examinations for all the 22 papers will be conducted by an ONLINE Computer Based Test (CBT). The online examination paper will contain some questions for which numerical answers must be keyed in by the candidate using the virtual keypad. Rest of the questions shall be of Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) type.
GATE 2015 examinations will be held during forenoon and afternoon sessions on alternate weekends (Saturday and Sunday) between 31st January 2015 and 14th February 2015. Examination for some of the papers in GATE 2015 will be held in multiple sessions. Exact details regarding complete examination schedule will be notified at a later date.
The payment of application fees would be online through different modes like net banking, debit/credit card, e-challan, etc.
GATE 2015 score is valid for THREE YEARS from the date of announcement of the results.
During the online GATE 2015 examination, all candidates will be provided with an online scientific calculator which has to be used to answer the questions.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Types of Chemical engineering drawings - BFD, PFD, P&ID

The terms flow sheet and flow diagrams are often used in engineering and design applications. But this is not the accurate way to describe the process drawings. This post will give a glimpse about the types of process drawings.

Basically there are three types of process diagrams in chemical engineering context.

BFD - Block Flow Diagrams.
PFD - Process Flow Diagrams.
P&ID - Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams.

In a brief BFD represents entire process in a single sheet, where as in PFD you can find some detailed information like plant operating conditions, process flow. It uses symbols to represent the equipment. P&IDs provide detail information when compared to above two drawings. They use standard nomenclature, symbols, and tag numbers to fully describe the process.

These drawings are very useful as they convey the right amount of process information as needed during various stages of bidding, engineering design, procurement, construction, operating & decommissioning phases of the process.

BFD-Block Flow Diagram

Block Flow diagram by Chemineering.blogspot.com

A BFD has the ability to represent the complete process on a little more than a single sheet. It contains mainly text enclosed by boxes, interconnecting lines with flow arrows. In some BFDs mass flow rates may be mentioned so as to describe the material balance over the entire plant.

PFD-Process Flow Diagram

Process Flow diagram by Chemineering.blogspot.com

PFDs contain more information than the block flow diagrams from which they are derived. They show more detail about major equipment, subsystems and the flow of product between them. A typical PFD contains equipment symbols connected by process lines where temperature and pressure information are shown on the line itself. You can easily refer the properties of a particular stream through stream number. For designing a P&ID, equipment layout PFD is mandatory.

P&ID-Piping and Instrumentation Diagram

Piping and instrumentation diagram by Chemineering.blogspot.com

P&IDs carry a lot of information to define the process. Derived from PFD it is the best way of accurately documenting the operation of a process. P&ID takes the conceptual aspects of PFD and expand them by adding

Detailed symbols.
Detailed equipment information.
Equipment order and process sequence.
Process and utility piping.
Process flow direction.
Major and minor bypass lines.
Line numbers, Pipe spec, Pipe size.
Isolation and shut off valves.
Instrumentation controls.
Types of process component connections.

A P&ID can be best understood with the help of a legend sheet given by the P&ID developer. Legend sheet contains information regarding the nomenclature, tag philosophy, symbols, a lot more. Download the PDF files to know more about drawings and legend sheet.

For detail information on BFD, PFD and P&IDs download the following PDF files.

Download PDF file for Piping and symbols

Download PDF file for BFD, PFD, P&ID

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Top 10 books for Chemical Engineering beginners.

Whether you are a student or a engineering professional,some books will have lot of impact in your real life. Following books will give wide knowledge in the Chemical Engineering field.

1. Unit operations of Chemical engineering.

Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering By Chemineering.blogspot.com

One of the oldest books from McGraw Hill book house, Unit operations of Chemical engineering can be considered as a bible for Chemical Engineers. This book is widely using in universities as a basic text for Chemical engineering. If you want to learn basics then this book is for you.

Each section has been framed in a perfect manner for learning step by step. At the end of each chapter you can find lot of problems which will be useful for practice.

Name - Unit operations of Chemical engineering.
Author - Warren Lee McCabe, Julian Smith, Peter Harriot.

2. Introduction to Chemical engineering thermodynamics.

Introduction to chemical engineering thermodynamics by Smith, van ness, abott

Another productive book from McGraw Hill, Introduction to Chemical Thermodynamics is a comprehensive book that starts from basic concepts and end up with a detail description of real gas behavior, solution thermodynamics. Generally solution thermodynamics, real gas behavior is much useful in Chemical and Process industry. Some of the equations from this book found their place in famous simulators which will give the real time values for a given temperature, pressure data. Problems at the end of each chapter will enhance your thermodynamics knowledge.

Name - Introduction to Chemical Engineering thermodynamics.
Author - Joseph Mauk Smith, Hendrick C. Van Ness, Michael M. Abbott

3. Chemical Process Principles Part-1

Chemical process principles by Hougen ,watson and ragatz

In every industry, material and energy balance across a given operation is of immense value. So if you want to ace the material and energy balance this is must book. It will give a glimpse about vapor pressure,humidity, saturation, excess air problems, limiting reagent, crystallization etc.,These principles are much useful to solve mass and momentum transfer problems.

Name - Chemical Process Principles Part - 1.
Author - Joseph Mauk Smith, Hendrick C. Van Ness, Michael M. Abbott

4. Mass transfer operations

Mass transfer operations by Robert treybal

Mass transfer in general involves transfer of material from one phase to another phase.And the mass transfer operations include Absorption, Distillation, Extraction, Leaching ,Stripping etc.,These operations are explained in a precise manner in this book.Also you can find the mass transfer equipment design fundamentals. You can gain stringent experience by calculating mass transfer problems as you will encounter lot of practical problems at the end of every chapter.

Name - Mass Transfer Operations.
Author - Robert E. Treybal

5. Heat Transfer

Heat transfer is a important operation in every industry (Chemical, Process etc.,) because if you save energy you save money. As a beginner or a engineering professional if you have this book,then you can excel in heat balance calculations, heat exchangers, heat exchanger designs. The data present in this book is of immense value in chemical industry. Every chapter has been explained with clear illustrations. Even it is useful for Mechanical engineers.

Name - Heat Transfer.
Author - J.P Holman

6. Chemical reaction engineering

Chemical reaction engineering by Octave levenspiel

Chemical reaction engineering is important for determining the reactor size, reactor type, temperatures and pressures required for the reaction. Reactions kinetics plays a major role in chemical industry, particularly in fertilizer and pharma sector. In this particular book you can learn about half time, conversion rates, first order reactions,second order reactions,batch reactors, continuous stirred tank reactors (CSTR), plug flow reactors (PFR), activation energies, catalyst effect etc.,

Name - Chemical reaction engineering.
Author - Octave Levenspiel.

7. Process system analysis and Control

Process system analysis and control by Donald

Now a days every industry is automated, automated in the sense you can monitor the chemical plant from a distributed control system in a control room. In the Process system analysis and control book the author has described how a signal (pressure, temperature, flow etc.,) can be sent to the controller and how the controller functions. This book will give a glimpse about Laplace transforms, first order systems, second order systems, open loop ,closed loop transfer functions, control systems, control valves etc., Check out the book for more!

Name - Process system analysis and control.

Author - Donald R. Coughanowr.

8. Plant Design and Economics for Chemical Engineers

Plant design and process economics for chemical engineers by Peters, Timmerhaus

Plant design and economics for a chemical engineers is a very good book on process economics, HAZOP, SWOT analysis, interest calculator, loan repayment, income tax deductions etc., in short it is a non technical book with equal technical importance. You can learn management basics from this book.

Name - Plant design and economics for Chemical engineers.

Authors - Max S. Peters, Klaus D. Timmerhaus

9. Shreve's Chemical process industries

Shreves chemical process industries by George .T. Austin

Knowing about Chemical process principles and operations is one part, but knowing about several prominent Chemical process is required. For this Shreve's chemical process industries is a good book. This book is a collection of several chemical process, fertilizer industries, paints oil refineries, sugar industries,ceramic industries, glass industries, etc.,It hilights the major operations involving in that particular process.

Name - Shreve's Chemical process industries.
Author - George T.Austin

10. Transport Phenomena

Some of the complex problems in chemical engineering are derived from the basic equations mentioned in the above books. This book provides insight into practical problems that occur in every chemical industry, this includes velocity distributions for newtonian and non newtonian fluids, mass tansfer , heat transfer problems etc.,After reading this book you can solve almost every problem by using the shell balance concepts.

Name - Transport Phenomena.

Authors - Warren E Stewart, R. Byron Bird, and Edwin N. Lightfoot

Saturday, June 14, 2014

What is the difference between Chemistry and Chemical Engineering ?

Have you ever came across this question, what is the difference between Chemistry and Chemical engineering ? To put in simple words Chemistry mainly deals with the chemical aspects (like pH, electromotive force, reaction with water etc.,) of the chemicals, where as if you pick Chemical Engineering it deals mainly with physical aspects (like density, viscosity, diffusivity, boiling point etc., ). But you can find some properties commonly using in both streams.

Chemist work:

In general chemists take care of chemical reaction rates, properties of matter, research involved in the production of new chemicals. They use wide variety of equipment in laboratory to analyze the chemical behavior,composition, conductivity, pH, polarity, surface tension etc.,For example the reaction between a polar molecule and a organic compound depends on the affinity between those two chemicals. also the composition, pH of the products after the reaction will be given by the chemists.

Chemical engineer work:

Chemical engineers use the data provide by chemists to design a chemical industry. They much involve in designing the distillation columns, extractors, pressure vessels, reactors, by using the physical properties of chemicals. For example in a distillation column, temperature at the top and bottom of the column have predominant effect on the purity of chemicals.Chemical engineers used to work on simulators to solve complex problems related to process in a chemical industry.

Job profiles:

Chemists with post graduation and Ph.D have bright opportunities in the field of research. Also they can opt to work as chemists and R&D technicians with graduation.
Chemical engineers on the other hand have wide opportunities in the field of process engineering, design of chemical plants, chemical plant operation etc.,

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

First law of thermodynamics and sign convention of heat, work.

First law of thermodynamics

First law of thermodynamics states that

"Energy can be neither created nor destroyed but one form of energy can be converted to another form."

For example consider a ball is placed on the top of a table initially. It will have certain potential energy ( Energy possessed by virtue of its height ) as it is at a height from the ground. When it is allowed to fall from the table this potential energy will be converted into kinetic energy ( Energy possessed by virtue of its motion ). This kinetic energy will be converted to heat , sound etc., when it touches the ground.
In application of the first law to a given process, the sphere of influence of the process is divided into two parts namely system and surroundings. The region in which process occurs is the System and everything which the system interacts is the surroundings. First law of thermodynamics applies to both system and surroundings. In general,

Δ Energy of system + Δ Energy of surrounding = 0

For the above example if you consider ball as a system initial energy is potential and final energy is kinetic,but the energy is gained by surroundings as heat and sound.

Systems are of two types.

Open = System which exchange both mass and energy with surroundings.
Closed = System which exchange only energy with surroundings.

For simplification here we are considering closed systems only. In general system contains some internal energy ( in the form of attractions and vibrations ) and this tend to change when the heat is added or removed, when work is done on the system or delivered by the system.For closed systems energy transfer between system and surroundings takes place in the form of work and heat. ( where as in open systems internal energy will be associated in transit also i.e., at entry and exit of the system ). For closed systems energy changes mostly occur in internal energy. So,

Δ Energy of system = Change in internal energy = ± Q ± W

Only change in internal energies can be found as it is hard to know the energy associated with attractions and vibrations. Q is heat and W is work.

Sign Convention for heat and work.

Q and W always refer to system.

Heat given by the system, Heat produced by the system = -Q

Heat given to the system, Heat supplied to the system = +Q

Work done by the system, work produced by the system = -W

Work done on the system, work given to the system = +W

Example :

Δ Internal energy = Q - W

Heat is given to the system and work is done by the system.

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