An Introduction To Process Simulation For The Capstone Design Course

The use of process simulators during the capstone process design course has become an expected part of most chemical engineering curricula. Unfortunately, the mechanisms to teach students how to use these tools have often been ad hoc or completely lacking. Ideally, students would gain familiarity with process simulation throughout the curriculum so that when starting senior design, they have a good understanding of the benefits, limitations, and general functionality of the process simulator. In practice, most students arrive in their senior design classes without knowing how to use a simulator to help solve open-ended problems. In general, their experience has been with small, well-defined problems. To help alleviate this problem, a short-term design project has been developed to teach the basics of process simulation within the context of analyzing an existing plant and suggesting process improvements. Specific goals of this project include (1) learn how to simulate a wide variety of unit operations, (2) learn benefits and limitations of different thermodynamic models, and (3) understand system-wide effects of changing process variables (as part of the process improvement aspect).