Safety education through case study presentations
Publication date: January 2013 Source:Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 8, Issue 1 Author(s): David C. Shallcross Process safety was introduced into the curriculum of two second year undergraduate subjects in the chemical engineering programs at the University of Melbourne in 2009. As part of the student learning, groups of three to four students were each given a safety case study to investigate and report on to the rest of the class. The case studies include well known process incidents including Bhopal, Buncefield, Longford, Flixborough and Piper Alpha. Also included were incidents drawn from other industrie...
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - October 12, 2014 Category: Chemistry Source Type: research
Using concept maps to assess learning of safety case studies – The Piper Alpha disaster
Publication date: January 2013 Source:Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 8, Issue 1 Author(s): David C. Shallcross The Piper Alpha disaster of 1988 remains the worst offshore oil platform disaster in history. The loss of 167 lives was caused by a range of factors including human error, poor safety training and poor safety management systems. The events that led up to the first explosion and then the subsequent fires and larger explosions provide an excellent context in which to introduce first year engineering students to the importance of safety in an introductory course. The loss of the Piper Alpha platform ha...
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - October 12, 2014 Category: Chemistry Source Type: research
Proposed vertical integration of prior learning to support students undertaking Chemical Engineering Design
Publication date: April 2013 Source:Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 8, Issue 2 Author(s): Ashleigh Fletcher , Stuart Boon During academic session 2008–2009, the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, changed Year 4 Chemical Engineering Design project teaching to include mixed groups from Bachelors and Masters programmes; team delivery and two separate components of design. This paper presents data for 408 students studying Chemical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde pre and post change; exploring the impact of these changes and highlighting potential for supported, vertica...
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - October 12, 2014 Category: Chemistry Source Type: research
Spreadsheets for assisting Transport Phenomena Laboratory experiences
Publication date: April 2013 Source:Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 8, Issue 2 Author(s): Aurelio Stammitti Academic laboratories have been traditionally used for complementing and reinforcing in a practical way the theoretical instruction received in classroom lectures. However, data processing and model evaluation tasks are time consuming and do not add much value to the student's learning experience as they reduce available time for result analysis, critical thinking and report writing skills development. Therefore, this project addressed this issue by selecting three experiences of the Transport Phenomena...
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - October 12, 2014 Category: Chemistry Source Type: research
Integrating computer applications into undergraduate courses: Process control and utility design
In this study, two types of utilities were under consideration; the shell and tube type and the multi-effect evaporator. By setting design parameters such as the dimensions of the tube, the calculation can be carried out to obtain the heat transfer area and cost. Utility design software development was performed using MATLAB software version 7.8, which is equipped with various advanced applications. Based on the analysis of the comparison between the use of a manual method and the use of software for the calculation of the four utilities, the overall average difference was less than 15%. (Source: Education for Chemical Engineers)
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - October 12, 2014 Category: Chemistry Source Type: research
Positioning “chemical product design” in the chemical engineering curricula in India
Publication date: April 2013 Source:Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 8, Issue 2 Author(s): Anand V.P. Gurumoorthy , R.J. Byron Smith Chemical product design is concerned with the design of specialty products such as formulated products, specialty chemicals, etc. Chemical product design is becoming increasingly relevant to chemical engineers as chemical process industries (CPIs) are shifting away from the traditional commodity products to specialty products. In this article, the nature of the specialty product industry is discussed in detail. It is felt that this vital area is under-represented in Indian chemi...
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - October 12, 2014 Category: Chemistry Source Type: research
Engineering ethics and accreditation
Publication date: August 2013 Source:Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 8, Issue 3 Author(s): Raffaella Ocone The teaching of ethics in engineering poses challenges to teachers as well as to accreditors who need to identify and assess the ethical content of the engineering curriculum. If a stand-alone module on ethics is offered, the task might appear easy; however, the introduction of ethics within an engineering degree should not be constrained to a single module, but rather considered in relation to the whole curriculum. Consequently, the accreditors face a harder task: questions such as, “how should the mo...
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - October 12, 2014 Category: Chemistry Source Type: research
A real time approach to process control education with an open-ended simulation tool
Publication date: August 2013 Source:Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 8, Issue 3 Author(s): Yechun Zhang , Muhammad T. Munir , Wei Yu , Brent R. Young Process simulators are widely used in industrial process designs and academic research. These simulation tools are also perfectly suitable for the process dynamics and control education of junior chemical engineers and students, as these tools mimetically help them with comprehending the basic theories of process control, such as process capacity, dead time, control loops, controllers and multi-unit processes such as distillation columns. At the University of...
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - October 12, 2014 Category: Chemistry Source Type: research
