CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN

CE 420

INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN

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Nature of design - What isdesign?
 Design is the synthesis or putting together of
ideas (whether new or existing) to achieve the
desired purpose.
 It is one of the creative activities performed by
engineers as it involves:
 Generating of ideas, and Translating such ideas
into a piece of equipment, new article (item) etc.
 For process (chemical) engineers, such ideas can be In chemical engineering design, a
translated into a new chemical product, a piece of creative activity involves creative
equipment or stage in a process or a manufacturing thinking and problem solving skills
plant for: often through team effort in which
fundamental concepts of chemical
 Producing a new product and/or engineering and economics are
 upgrading the value of an existing product in a applied to achieve the desired
solution.
safe, reliable, and economic way 2
What is Plant Design?
 Plant design – includes all engineering aspects required to develop a new,
modified or expanded chemical manufacturing plant.
 E.g., Process, mechanical, civil etc. engineering.
 In this process, the role of a process engineers is typically to:
 Make economic evaluations of possible processes.
 Make decisions on the choice of stage operations and designing
equipment to perform stage functions for the proposed plant.
 Develop plant layout for coordination of various operations.
 Chemical engineering design – can thus be defined as the selection and
sequencing of stages, and the selection, specification and design of individual
equipment to perform the stage functions leading to a full process plant.
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Process design requirements
 For a successful design, a chemical engineer must
have a good understanding of the concepts in:

◦ Material and energy balances.

◦ Thermodynamics and reaction engineering.

◦ Heat and mass transfer, and the

◦ application of computers for process simulation.

 Must also be able to apply such knowledge to practical

situations.
 Further, process engineers must recognize the economic,
Figure. Above, mass transfer
environmental, and ethical constraints involved in such concepts, below CFD
activities and proceed accordingly. simulation of process

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Chemical engineering design - Some key terms!
1) Process synthesis: Commonly used in process simulation.

 Is a design step where the chemical engineer selects the

unit operations, t h e components (equipment), their
interconnections and operating conditions to create a
process that meets the intended purpose and constraints.

 Process is in the form of process flow diagram–flow sheet.

 Flow sheet (process) can be optimized with the help

of mathematical techniques or experience.

 Computer simulation software are often used in process Figure. Optimization by

engineering to model and simulate process behaviour so as numerical techniques in
MATLAB, below using
to optimize it. simulation software.
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Chemical engineering design - Some key terms!
2) Process simulation involves the use of mathematical
model to represent a process and predict its behavior
through numerical solutions of such models.

 Simulations are of two types, namely, Steady state

simulation - steady state mass and energy balances
are u s e d .

 Dynamic simulations, unsteady state mass and

energy balances are used.

 Interest is to know the time-dependence of key

process variables.

 Simulations gives information on process

variables, equipment sizes, performance evaluation,
control and monitoring.
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Why process design?
1) New product or established but unavailable product required: process engineer
develops the processing plant for the desired product to meet society needs.

 Plant can be a replica of an existing plant for known products or entirely new or
modification of an existing plant for new product.

 The designer has to choose the best pieces of equipment, and

 the best way to integrate such equipment to develop an entire processing plant.

 Or design and construct such equipment if unavailable.

 Designer also comes up with best operating conditions for the designed process.

 That is, process engineer provides a solution, the manufacturing process, to meet
the needs of society at a profit and in a safe way.

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Why process design?
 Process design, particularly process simulation, is also required to ensure that
the best operating conditions are arrived at in order to operate the plant safely,
profitably and reliably.

 Design activities may also be undertaken for:

o retrofitting to improve an existing processes.

o Removing bottlenecks in a processing plant.

o Increase plant capacity and plant efficiency.

o Decrease operating costs i.e. optimize, and adherence to environmental

regulations and standards of safety.

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Design constraints
 Usually a number of possible solutions
(designs) to meet the desired purpose (need)
exits.
 As the designer considers the possible
designs, he/she will be constrained by a
number of factors.
 Factors narrows down possible designs,
Figure 1. External and internal
though it is rare for there to be just one constraints
possible design.
 I.e. several alternatives designs will still be there, even several best solutions.
 Constraints arise in many ways: (1) Internal, and (2) External Constraints.
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Design constraints
 External constraints: constraints over which the designer has no influence.
 Constraints are fixed i.e., designer has no flexibility to relax them. Figure 1.
 External constraints define the boundary for possible designs and must be
identified early in the design.
 Internal constraints: Designer has some influence over such constraints.
 They can be relaxed by the designer as part of strategy to find best design.
See Figure 1.
 Internal constraints define the boundary in which plausible designs exits.
 Economic constraints are a major consideration as plant must make profit.
 Time available for project limits number of alternative designs to consider. 10
Nature of design - Design process
 Design is iterative, Figure 2, since as design develops:

 More possible designs and constraints are revealed,

and

 Designer constantly seeks new data and ideals and

evaluates possible designs.

1) Objective or need: Designer starts with a specific

objective to fulfil a particular need.

 For process engineers, the need can be a public need for a

particular product.

 Usually, foreseen by sales and marketing departments

and represents commercial opportunity. Figure 2. Design process
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Nature of design - Design process
 Need can also arise from client’s request to meet product requirements.

 It defines the overall objective from which designer identifies sub-objectives.

 I.e., requirements of individual units that make up the process.

 Complete and unambiguous description of the need required before starting work.

 For needs from clients or other department, clarified description is required.

 Needs can be real needs or wants.

 Wants are parts of the specifications thought of as desirable but can be relaxed.

 E.g., product specification considered desirable but difficulty or costly to obtain.

 Thus can be relaxed to produce cheaper but sealable product.

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Nature of design - Design process
 Designer always questions the requirements and review them whenever possible.

 Specifications for others must be concise and comprehensive as they define

constraints for others.

 E.g., specifications for mechanical design or purchase of a piece of equipment.

2) Data collection: Assembling of all facts and data required for process design.

 E.g., Process and economic data on possible processes, equipment (performance

and costs data), physical property data etc.

 Can be one of the most tedious step and most design organization prepare basic
data manual with all process ‘know-how’ for the design.

 Design manuals with preferred methods and data for routine designs prepared.

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Nature of design - Design process
3) Generation of possible designs: Most creative part and possible designs – ways of
meeting the objective are generated for analysis, evaluation and selection.

 Designer relies mostly on own experience or that of others from literature.

 Designs are rarely new, most designs have antecedences.

 E.g. Distillation towers originated from ancient stills for rectification of spirits.

 Similarly most designs can be traced i.e., uncommon to face entirely novel design.

 Tried and tested designs are preferred as cost and time in new designs is usually
underestimated.

 Amount of work and approach depends on extent of novelty

 Typically, the more novel the design, the more unknowns and the more the work.
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Nature of design - Design process
 Design in process engineering can be divided into the following:

1) Modifications and additions (retrofitting) to existing plant.

2) New production capacity to meet increased demand – repetition of existing

plant with minor changes.

3) New processes for new product developed from laboratory research, through
pilot plant to full-scale plant.

 Most stages and equipment will still use established designs.

 First step when designing is to sketch a block diagram showing main stages, their
functions and constraints.

 Experience or literature should then indicate what unit operation or equipment is

required.
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Nature of design - Design process
4) Selection: Involves progressive evaluation and selection to narrow down possible
designs to best design for the purpose.

 Typically goes through the following steps:

1) Possible designs – credible designs within the external constraints.

2) Plausible designs – feasible designs within internal constraints.

3) Probable designs – likely designs from a list of possible designs

4) Best design – optimal design, considered as the best solution to the problem.

 Uses rough screening in early stages and becomes more detailed and refined.

 Process knowledge, engineering judgement, rough costings suffice for selection in

the early stages.
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Nature of design - Design process
 Selection of best design from probable designs would require detailed design
work and costing.

 For designs likely to be close in performance, the effort and time for further
refinements may not be worthwhile.

 Since there usually some inaccuracies in the cost estimates.

 Simulation software that are based on mathematical models of the process can be
used to assist in finding the optimum process design.

Structure of a chemical manufacturing process

 Figure 3 is a general representation of main stages involved in a chemical process.

 Not all stages will be involved in a typical process and complexity will depend on
nature of process.
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Structure of a chemical manufacturing process

1) Raw material (feed stock) storage

 Provision has to be made to hold several days, or weeks, storage to smooth out
fluctuations and interruptions in supply.

 If raw materials are supplied from neighbouring plant, provision still has to be
made to store several hours or days supply to decouple processes.

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Structure of a chemical manufacturing process
 The storage required will depend on:

a) the nature of the raw materials,

b) the method of delivery, and

c) the assurance placed on the continuity of supply.

 If delivered by ship, several week storage may be necessary.

 And if by road or rail in smaller amounts, less or several days storage will suffice.

2) Feed Preparation
 Feed should be sufficiently pure or in the right form before fed to reaction stage.
 Liquid feeds will need to be vaporized before being fed to gas phase reactors.
 Solids may need crushing, grinding and screening, e.g., the grinding circuit.
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Structure of a chemical manufacturing process
 E.g., in the production of sulfuric acid, off-gas from smelter undergoes gas
cleaning before being fed to the absorber.

3) Reaction stage

 is the main stage of a chemical manufacturing process.

 Raw materials are brought together under conditions that promote the
production of the desired product.

 By-products and unwanted compounds (impurities) are always formed.

4) Product Separation

 From the reactor the products and by-products are separated from any
unreacted material.

 If in sufficient quantity, the unreacted material will be recycled to the reactor. 20

Structure of a chemical manufacturing process
 They may be returned directly to the reactor, or to the feed purification and
preparation stage.

 The by-products may also be separated from the products at this stage.

5) Purification

 Main product may need purification to meet the product specification.

 If valuable and in economic quantities, by-products may also be purified for sale.

6) Product Storage

 Required to hold product for fours or even days as product is not immediately
dispatched.

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Structure of a chemical manufacturing process
 Storage also provides inventory of the finished product that can be used to match
production with sales.

 The stock held will depend on the nature of the product and the market.

 Large storage is required for products with high demand.

7) Ancillary Processes

 In addition to the main process, provision will have to be made for the supply of
the services (utilities) needed.

 I.e., process water, cooling water, compressed air, steam, electricity etc.

 Facilities also needed for maintenance, firefighting, offices, laboratories,

workshop etc.

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