School of Chemical Engineering

CEIC3005 Process Plant Design

SESSION 2, 2016
Version 2

Contents
General Course Information 2
Student Learning Outcomes 3
Assessment 3
Course Schedule 4
Resources for Students 4
Teaching Strategies 5
The rationale behind the approach to learning and teaching 5
Academic Honesty and Plagiarism 6
Course Evaluation and Development 7
Other Matters 7

Course Staff
Staff Contact Consultation

Prof Greg Leslie* G.leslie@unsw.edu.au Moodle Discussion

Building F10 room 915 or by appointment (E-
mail to confirm time)

A/Prof Pierre Le-Clech p.le-clech@unsw.edu.au Moodle Discussion

Building F10 room 211 or by appointment (E-
mail to confirm time)

* Course Coordinator

CEIC3005 – year 2013 1

General course information

Outline and aims

The course covers four aspects of the design of chemical processing plants. This
includes: (1) Design Documentation, which covers prioritisation of design constraints
and objectives, identification of relevant design guidelines and environmental standards,
drawing conventions for block flow diagrams (BFD), process flow diagrams (PFD), piping
and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID) and general arrangement (GA) of equipment; (2)
Process Simulation, which covers the use of Aspen Plus® software for the design and
optimization of chemical unit operations (3) Process Economics which covers the
techniques used to estimate operating and maintenance costs, capital costs, cash flow
analysis and life cycle costs for engineering projects, and (4) Process Safety which
covers techniques to manage hazard and safety issues in a chemical plant or process.
hazard and safety aspects This course is part of the chemical engineering design stream
and students are required to demonstrate competency in a range of design tasks as
outlined in the assessment criteria table below.

Requisite knowledge and relationships to other courses

This course is allied with the goals of CEIC 3004, which treats the issues associated with
the design of individual unit processes. CEIC 3005, continues this design theme by
walking the student through the steps of integrating all the unit processes into complete
plant design and investigating the techniques to assess the overall performance of the
plant. The two courses prepare the student for the 4 th year design project.

Target students and career prospects

The course is intended to prepare the student for how chemical engineering is practiced
at the preliminary design stages of a project. By completing this course (and design
project in 4 th year) you will become familiar with the steps associated with planning and
evaluating a new chemical process and collecting and documenting the information
needed to proceed through the design stage. The skills acquired in this course are used
by companies during the development of a business case to to upgrade an existing plant
or to develop a brand new facility. Students considering a career in consulting
engineering or project planning would be expected to be familiar with these methods.
The course also offers an introduction to the theory behind hazard analysis which is
central to the design process, but is also an essential component of construction,
commissioning, operation and production activities in all sectors of the engineering
industry.

Course Details
Unit of Credit value for the course: 6
This course is not taught in parallel with other courses

CEIC3005 – year 2013 2

Student Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course students are expected to have attained competency in the
following skills:

Develop budgetary cost estimates, discount cash flow analysis and net present value
for a chemical processes using standard engineering cost estimating methods.
S1: Understanding of their discipline in its Estimating capital, operating and whole of life costs
interdisciplinary context is essential for assessing the economic viability of
PE1.1: C omprehensive theory-based understanding chemical processes. Students will develop an in-
depth understanding of the techniques used in other
engineering disciplines, e.g. mechanical and civil
engineering as well as the finance industry to
estimate these costs .

Use basic software developed by the petrochemical industry to simulate the

performance and establish basic sizing of a range of common unit operations.
S4: Able to apply their knowledge and skills to solving The ability to size and predict the performance of
problems unit operations under a range of conditions
PE2.1: Application of established engineering methods underpins the design of processes and equipment
to complex engineering problem solving used in the chemical industry. Critical thinking is
developed through comparison of calculation
methods. This facilitates the identification of an
optimal design or problem solution.

Prepare engineering drawings to sufficient detail for the preliminary design stages of
an engineering project and know how to use the basic techniques to identify and
assess safety and hazards issues

S7: Information literate Engineering graduates must be able to prepare

PE3.4: Professional use & management of information engineering documents that conform to professional
standards and use recognized techniques for
reducing risk to minimize harm to people, and
damage to equipment and the environment

CEIC3005 – year 2013 3

Assessment
Assessment for CEIC 3005 consists of a series of on-line and in-class assessment
exercises. No single exercise is worth more than 10% of the total grade. In-class
assessments will be conducted under exam conditions because exams have a high
degree of reliability in assessing students understanding and competency in the subject.
Students are required to attain passing grades (>50%) in both the on-line and in-class
assessment activities in order to pass the course.

Item Marks Due Date Rationale and Assessment Criteria

Design 5 Week 1, 4 & 12 Students will complete two questionnaires in week 1 and
Questionnaire & week 12 on the attributes of graduate process engineers.
Quiz The questionnaires are designed to assess the students
(on-line) progression through CEIC 3005. An on-line quiz will be
scheduled for week 4 to test understanding of heuristics
and design constraints
P&ID Evaluation 10 Week 5 Students will complete an on-line quiz to their ability to
Quiz interpret information contained on a P&ID.
(On-line)
Design Document 10 Week 6 Students will develop a PCT/P&ID for a single unit
Assessment operation. The assessment is conducted under exam
(In class) conditions.
Process 5 Weeks 7-11 Students are required to complete a series of 5 short on-
Simulation Quiz line quizzes prior to attending the computer lab sessions
(On-line) x 5 to assess basic awareness of the features of the Aspen
plus software
Process 20 Weeks 10 & 13 Students will complete two in-class assessment tasks
Simulation under exam conditions to test competency (speed and
Assessment X 2 accuracy) on the use of Aspen. It is primarily designed
(In-Class) to align with UNSW graduate attributes 2 and 3.
Process 10 Weeks 3, 5 Students will complete three on-line quizzes to test their
Economics understanding of the process economics concepts
Tutorial Problems covered in the respective weeks.
(on-line) x2
Process 15 Week 6 Students will complete one in-class assessment quiz
Economics Quiz (Monday) under exam conditions to test competency (speed and
(In class) accuracy) on the analysis of the economic viability of an
upgrade to a chemical process.
Process Safety 10 Weeks 7 to 12 Students will complete three on-line quizzes to test their
Weekly quizzes understanding of the process economics concepts
(on-line) x 2 covered in the respective weeks.
Process Safety 15 Week 13 Students will complete one in-class safety quiz to test
Quiz (Friday) understanding of basic safety requirements for graduate
(In-class) engineers engaged in the design of chemical process
equipment
Total 100 Total marks for the course

CEIC3005 – year 2013 4

Course Schedule
Dates of for in-class assessment activities are indicated in bold. Attendance on these
dates is compulsory.

Monday 2-5
Friday 2-5pm
Week Chem Eng M17 (week 1-6)
Colombo Theatre C
Computer labs (week 7-13)

1 Introduction to Design Documentation, Heuristics

Introduction to Process Economics
for BFD & PFD
2 Cash Flow Analysis Process Control Tables
3 Depreciation and uncertainty analysis
Piping& Instrumentation Diagrams
General Arrangements & Environmental
4 Time value of money & Discounted Cash
Documentation
Flows
5 Economic Indicators: Payback, ROI, NPV, IRR Catchup
6 Case study Design Documentation Assessment Quiz
Final quiz on Economics (90 min)
7 Introduction to Simulations
Location tba
Flash Separation & Thermodynamics
8 Sensitivity Analysis, Distillation Simulations Process Safety #1
9 Reactor Simulations, Heat Exchanger
Process Safety #2
Simulations
Mid Semester Break
10 Public Holidays Process Safety #3
11 st
1 Aspen Simulation Assessment Process Safety #4
12 Additional Simulation Practice Process Safety #5
Final quiz on safety (90 min)
13 2nd Aspen Simulation Assessment Location tba

Black: Greg Leslie’s Design Documentation (weeks 1-6) and Simulation (weeks 7-13)
Blue: Pierre Le-Clech’s Process Economics (weeks 1-7) and Process Safety (Weeks 8-
13)

CEIC3005 – year 2013 5

Resources for Students

Weekly Lecture Notes & Tutorial Problems (available on Moodle)

Reference Textbooks
Design Documentation & Process Economics
Coulson and Richardson, Chemical Engineering (Volume 6) 1
- Chapter 1 – Sections 1 - 5
Process Safety
Coulson and Richardson’s Chemical Engineering Design (volume 6)
Standard Australia Limited/Standards New Zealand, Risk management –
Guidelines on risk assessment techniques (SA/SNZ HB 89: 2013). Available on UNSW
Library (online, through Sai Global Database)
Simulation
Simulation Tutorial Package – School of Chemical Science and Engineering
Additional course notes will be distributed during the session. The notes will be available
on Moodle.

Teaching Strategies

The course is based on the principle of learning by doing! Students will be exposed to
the methods and practices used by engineers in the preliminary stages of the design
process during lectures and will be given the opportunity to use the techniques in a
series of on-line and in-class tutorials. Competency on the use of Aspen Plus®
software for simulating chemical processes will be developed in the computer labs in
chemical engineering.

The rationale behind the approach to learning and teaching

Becoming familiar with the formal aspects and process of engineering design is like
learning a language. There are some basic rules on structure and content and many
new terms (similar to a vocabulary). We will start by covering the basics and learning
the format. However, design is an applied subject so we will learn by doing. This will
involve looking at different chemical process examples taken from plastics,
environmental, mineral processing, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries. We
will not cover the background information on these processes. The students are
expected to do their own research and reading on the fundamentals of the process.
The rationale for this course is to look in detail on the method of how the design
process is applied to a particular example from these industries. At the end of the
course the students will have confidence in their ability to recognize the stages of the
design process and understand what type and level of investigation is required at each
stage and how the outputs of the design process are used to make decisions on which
design is implemented.

CEIC3005 – year 2013 6

Academic Honesty and Plagiarism
What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the presentation of the thoughts or work of another as one’s own.* Examples
include:

• direct duplication of the thoughts or work of another, including by copying material, ideas
or concepts from a book, article, report or other written document (whether published or
unpublished), composition, artwork, design, drawing, circuitry, computer program or
software, web site, Internet, other electronic resource, or another person’s assignment
without appropriate acknowledgement;
• paraphrasing another person’s work with very minor changes keeping the meaning, form
and/or progression of ideas of the original;
• piecing together sections of the work of others into a new whole;
• presenting an assessment item as independent work when it has been produced in whole
or part in collusion with other people, for example, another student or a tutor; and
• claiming credit for a proportion a work contributed to a group assessment item that is
greater than that actually contributed.†

For the purposes of this policy, submitting an assessment item that has already been
submitted for academic credit elsewhere may be considered plagiarism.

Knowingly permitting your work to be copied by another student may also be considered to
be plagiarism.

Note that an assessment item produced in oral, not written, form, or involving live
presentation, may similarly contain plagiarised material.

The inclusion of the thoughts or work of another with attribution appropriate to the academic
discipline does not amount to plagiarism.

The Learning Centre website is main repository for resources for staff and students on
plagiarism and academic honesty. These resources can be located via:

www.lc.unsw.edu.au/plagiarism

The Learning Centre also provides substantial educational written materials, workshops, and
tutorials to aid students, for example, in:

• correct referencing practices;

• paraphrasing, summarising, essay writing, and time management;
• appropriate use of, and attribution for, a range of materials including text, images,
formulae and concepts.

Individual assistance is available on request from The Learning Centre.

Students are also reminded that careful time management is an important part of study and
one of the identified causes of plagiarism is poor time management. Students should allow
sufficient time for research, drafting, and the proper referencing of sources in preparing all
assessment items.

* Based on that proposed to the University of New castle by the St James Ethics Centre. Used w ith kind permission from the University of
New castle
† Adapted w ith kind permission from the University of Melbourne.

CEIC3005 – year 2013 7

Course Evaluation and Development

This course has been progressively developed and improved based on feed back from
undergraduate students. This course outline covers information on how he course will
be delivered, the content and learning outcomes. Students are encouraged to
comment on the course through the Course and Teaching Evaluation and
Improvement (CATEI) Process.

Other Matters
Calculators are sometimes required in final exams but are no longer supplied by the
university. You must provide your own accredited calculator, see university policy at:
https://my.unsw.edu.au/student/academiclife/assessment/examinations/Calculator.html

School policy on administrative matters relating to undergraduate students, including

matters relating to examination procedures, and what to do in the event of illness or
misadventure, may be found on the School’s website at:
http://www.chse.unsw.edu.au/current/ug_school_policy.html

Information on UNSW Occupational Health and Safety policies and expectations may
be found at:
http://www.policy.unsw.edu.au/classification/risk.htm

Students who have a disability that requires some adjustment in their learning and
teaching environment are encouraged to discuss their study needs with the course
convener prior to, or at the commencement of the course, or with the Equity Officer
(Disability) in the Equity and Diversity Unit (9385 4734). Information for students
with disabilities is available at:
http://www.studentequity.unsw.edu.au

Issues to be discussed may include access to materials, signers or note-takers, the

provision of services and additional examination and assessment arrangements. Early
notification is essential to enable any necessary adjustments to be made.

Change Log
Changes will not ordinarily be made to Course Outlines once published, especially so
for assessment structure. Sometimes, however, it may be necessary to adjust the
course schedule. Such changes should be documented here.
Document Changes made since previous version
version
Rev 1.0 Release version

Rev 2.0 Note changes to dates for on-line flow sheet and P&ID assessments
Note changes to dates for aspen simulation assessments

CEIC3005 – year 2013 8