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Computational methods for Process simulation
Chemical Engineering Pergamon
Scieme,
Vol. 41, No.
8, pp. 2X29-2130,
1992.
Press Ltd. Printed in Great Britain.
Plant Design for Safety: a User Friendly Approach. By T. KLETZ. Taylor & Francis, London, 161 pp., E28.00 Trevor Kletz’s target audience for this excellent book is clearly the senior management of the chemicals and oils manufacturing industries. He highlights the constraints in companies that can binder the development of user-friendly plants; market pressures for their early development, company bureaucracy, conceptual safety studies not carried out at an early stage of design and human nature conditioned managers, who went through the trying experiences in the 1960s and 1970s when many large new plants were built quickly and commissioned by them with difficulty. He raises an interesting current item of concern, namely, that today many company organisations are directed towards a strictly business focus; thus the position of their “managers of technology” can be significantly diminished. The central sections of the book meet the requirement of a subject debated in a number of chemical engineering magazine articles in 1991; the teaching of safety in design at an undergraduate level. One of the problems raised in this area is that there are few authoritative textbooks defining the scope and unifying principles of the subject. This book meets this problem by describing five principles, the core of inherently safer design, in a comprehensive fashion. These are; intensification-use less or store less hazardous materials; substitution-use safer reactants and solvents; attenuationuse hazardous materials under least hazardous conditions or form; limitation of eficts-develop safer ways of limiting the effects of failures; simplificarion-minimise opportunities for errors or failures. He illustrates these principles by many clear examples
Computational Methods for hoc RAMIREZ. Butterworths, Boston, X
Slmulrtlon..By W. FRED A, 1989, 501 pp., $52.95
The declared purpose of this book is “to help readers develop the skills necessary for engineers and scientists to &ciently perform process modelling and computer simulations of chemical, physical and biological processes*‘. This is achieved with the aid of FORTRAN listings and frequent reference to IMSL programs. The reader is introduced to the formulation of models by macroscopic balancing and then to methods of solution for lumped systems in the steady state. Particular emphasis is placed on tackling sets of non-linear equations using the “information-flow diagram equation organization concept”. The chapter on dynamic simulation of lumped systems introduces model simplification by order-of-magnitude analysis, and chapters of worked examples on reactors and vapourliquid equilibrium operations follow. Microscopic balancing is used to illustrate further the advantages of order-of-rnagnitude analysis, before the book concludes with chapters on the numerical solution of boundary-value problems and of partial differential equations. ‘The strengths and weaknesses of this book are consequences of the decision to cover both model formula2129
from well-known chemical plant incidents and from his own long practical experience in the industry. He makes six additional points which expand these five core principles. These six points are instantly recognisable to professional engineers. User-friendly plants must incorporate these design features which are: avoid knock-on effects, make incorrect assembly impossible, make the functions of systems clear and unambiguous, have some tolerance against poor installation, promote ease of control and allow system software errors to be readily detectable. He makes a strong plea for management to recognise the need for a clearer company hierarchy of safety studies. This classification must extend the classical HAZOP at the formal design stage to include modified HAZOP type work, at both the conceptual stage, where the process is emerging from research, and at the flow sheet stage during its initial development. He also strongly advocates more detailed and formal reviews of new plants after their completion and initial operations so as to prepare for the next generation of the plant. This book should be read by all practising engineers and by teachers involved in tertiary education and is also recommended for those students, who represent the future of the profession, and wish to gain some understanding of its future challenges. D. G. MOONEY Shell UK Ltd Stanlow Manufmturing Complex Elksmere Port South Wirral Lb5 4HB, U.K.
tion/simplification and solution algorithms in a rather limited space. It has only some 50% of the page area of that fine old stand-by, Camahan Luther and Wilkes, which is devoted solely to algorithms. Thus, among the important numerical topics omitted are continuation methods, methods for stiff equations, DAEs and high-index problems, finite-element methods, and the method of characteristics. Similarly, some of the introductory material might have gained from a more leisurely approach: instead of asserting that a banded s&t of linear equations is particularly easy to solve, why not demonstrate the fact for a tridiagonal set by deriving the Thomas algorithm? For his benchmark single non-linear equation, 0.716 -
4.257 x 10-6Z--
15.04T-1’2
= 0
why not show how a cursory inspection yields the starting value T = 441.234 K, and transformation to the variable x = T-l” permits solution to six significant figures in a single Newton iteration7 Formulation and simplification, too, have less space devoted to them than I should have liked. For instance, the author’s use of order-of-magnitude arguments can lead to deletion from an equation of its highest-order derivative. Such a deletion is not, in general, a step to be taken un-
2130
Book Reviews
hesitatingly, as work on perturbation methods makes clear; but I found no warning to this effect. Again, in formulating transient models, how helpful it would have been to discuss the conditions under which it is invalid to use such steadystate concepts as heat and mass transfer coefficients. On the other hand, the author gives himself the opportunity to discuss the interaction between problem formulation and choice of solution algorithms. Mathematical modelling is an art; it is instructive to read
Edition. By J. M. J. F. RICHARDSON, J. R. BACKHURST and J. H. HARKER. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1991, xxvi + 968 pp., f75.00, U.S.Ol27.50 (hardcover), E29.95. U.S.$Sf.OO (softcover)
Chemical
Engi neering, Vol. 2, Fourth
COULSON,
The new subtitle ‘Particle Technology and Separation Processes” (replacing “Unit Operations”) indicates the emphasis in the latest edition of this well-established textbook. Added to the coverage of particulate solids, solid-fluid systems, packed beds and the common mass transfer processes are new chapters on adsorption, ion exchange, chromatographic methods and membrane separations; also, centrifugal separations have been restored to a separate chapter, as in the first two editions. The new chapters follow the same general pattern as the others: first, a description of the importance of the process, then the fundamentals, including equilibria and kinetics where appropriate, and finally descriptions of the applications and equipment. Included in these chapters are such recent developments as moving beds for adsorption and ion exchange, pervaporation and bquid membranes. Revisions (or the lack of them) in other sections arc not ah as satisfactory. Activity coefttcient equations for non-ideal solutions have been added to the distillation chapter, but the most recently mentioned are those of Margules and van Laar, and the Gibbs-Duhem equation is given incorrectly. None of the work done in the last 20 years on
/
this artist’s careful account of his favoured approach. For this reason, and for its copious worked examples, I welcome this book and hope that it will be widely read. W. R. PATERSON Department
of Chemical Engineering
University of Cambridge Pembroke Street Cambridge CB2 3RA, U.K.
agitated vessels is referred to in the leaching and gas absorption sections, where a 1966 paper is described as recent and the little information given about k,a in agitated vessels is based on publications in 1966 and 1967. This edition retains the attractive features of its predecessors: clear descriptions of the processes, with excellent illustrations and very high quality photographs, together with a number of worked examples as well as tutorial problems. Also, there are improvements in the clarity of the type and diagrams. However, the increase in the number of pages of text from 807 to 968 is accompanied by an increase in price to a level which, even for the softcover version, is high for most students. Finally, a general impression: for the reviewer, who was a chemical engineering undergraduate about 40 years ago, this volume was a return to the methods of his youth, with analytical solutions, relationships between dimensionless groups, graphical procedures-and no computer programs. But the increasr‘ng applications of computer-based techniques must cast doubts on this approach, and raise the possibility that this volume may come to be regarded more as a memorial to the methods of the twentieth century than as a guide to the procedures for the twenty-first. W. J. McMANAMEY School of Chemical Engineering The University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT,
U.K.
Scieme,
Vol. 41, No.
8, pp. 2X29-2130,
1992.
Press Ltd. Printed in Great Britain.
Plant Design for Safety: a User Friendly Approach. By T. KLETZ. Taylor & Francis, London, 161 pp., E28.00 Trevor Kletz’s target audience for this excellent book is clearly the senior management of the chemicals and oils manufacturing industries. He highlights the constraints in companies that can binder the development of user-friendly plants; market pressures for their early development, company bureaucracy, conceptual safety studies not carried out at an early stage of design and human nature conditioned managers, who went through the trying experiences in the 1960s and 1970s when many large new plants were built quickly and commissioned by them with difficulty. He raises an interesting current item of concern, namely, that today many company organisations are directed towards a strictly business focus; thus the position of their “managers of technology” can be significantly diminished. The central sections of the book meet the requirement of a subject debated in a number of chemical engineering magazine articles in 1991; the teaching of safety in design at an undergraduate level. One of the problems raised in this area is that there are few authoritative textbooks defining the scope and unifying principles of the subject. This book meets this problem by describing five principles, the core of inherently safer design, in a comprehensive fashion. These are; intensification-use less or store less hazardous materials; substitution-use safer reactants and solvents; attenuationuse hazardous materials under least hazardous conditions or form; limitation of eficts-develop safer ways of limiting the effects of failures; simplificarion-minimise opportunities for errors or failures. He illustrates these principles by many clear examples
Computational Methods for hoc RAMIREZ. Butterworths, Boston, X
Slmulrtlon..By W. FRED A, 1989, 501 pp., $52.95
The declared purpose of this book is “to help readers develop the skills necessary for engineers and scientists to &ciently perform process modelling and computer simulations of chemical, physical and biological processes*‘. This is achieved with the aid of FORTRAN listings and frequent reference to IMSL programs. The reader is introduced to the formulation of models by macroscopic balancing and then to methods of solution for lumped systems in the steady state. Particular emphasis is placed on tackling sets of non-linear equations using the “information-flow diagram equation organization concept”. The chapter on dynamic simulation of lumped systems introduces model simplification by order-of-magnitude analysis, and chapters of worked examples on reactors and vapourliquid equilibrium operations follow. Microscopic balancing is used to illustrate further the advantages of order-of-rnagnitude analysis, before the book concludes with chapters on the numerical solution of boundary-value problems and of partial differential equations. ‘The strengths and weaknesses of this book are consequences of the decision to cover both model formula2129
from well-known chemical plant incidents and from his own long practical experience in the industry. He makes six additional points which expand these five core principles. These six points are instantly recognisable to professional engineers. User-friendly plants must incorporate these design features which are: avoid knock-on effects, make incorrect assembly impossible, make the functions of systems clear and unambiguous, have some tolerance against poor installation, promote ease of control and allow system software errors to be readily detectable. He makes a strong plea for management to recognise the need for a clearer company hierarchy of safety studies. This classification must extend the classical HAZOP at the formal design stage to include modified HAZOP type work, at both the conceptual stage, where the process is emerging from research, and at the flow sheet stage during its initial development. He also strongly advocates more detailed and formal reviews of new plants after their completion and initial operations so as to prepare for the next generation of the plant. This book should be read by all practising engineers and by teachers involved in tertiary education and is also recommended for those students, who represent the future of the profession, and wish to gain some understanding of its future challenges. D. G. MOONEY Shell UK Ltd Stanlow Manufmturing Complex Elksmere Port South Wirral Lb5 4HB, U.K.
tion/simplification and solution algorithms in a rather limited space. It has only some 50% of the page area of that fine old stand-by, Camahan Luther and Wilkes, which is devoted solely to algorithms. Thus, among the important numerical topics omitted are continuation methods, methods for stiff equations, DAEs and high-index problems, finite-element methods, and the method of characteristics. Similarly, some of the introductory material might have gained from a more leisurely approach: instead of asserting that a banded s&t of linear equations is particularly easy to solve, why not demonstrate the fact for a tridiagonal set by deriving the Thomas algorithm? For his benchmark single non-linear equation, 0.716 -
4.257 x 10-6Z--
15.04T-1’2
= 0
why not show how a cursory inspection yields the starting value T = 441.234 K, and transformation to the variable x = T-l” permits solution to six significant figures in a single Newton iteration7 Formulation and simplification, too, have less space devoted to them than I should have liked. For instance, the author’s use of order-of-magnitude arguments can lead to deletion from an equation of its highest-order derivative. Such a deletion is not, in general, a step to be taken un-
2130
Book Reviews
hesitatingly, as work on perturbation methods makes clear; but I found no warning to this effect. Again, in formulating transient models, how helpful it would have been to discuss the conditions under which it is invalid to use such steadystate concepts as heat and mass transfer coefficients. On the other hand, the author gives himself the opportunity to discuss the interaction between problem formulation and choice of solution algorithms. Mathematical modelling is an art; it is instructive to read
Edition. By J. M. J. F. RICHARDSON, J. R. BACKHURST and J. H. HARKER. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1991, xxvi + 968 pp., f75.00, U.S.Ol27.50 (hardcover), E29.95. U.S.$Sf.OO (softcover)
Chemical
Engi neering, Vol. 2, Fourth
COULSON,
The new subtitle ‘Particle Technology and Separation Processes” (replacing “Unit Operations”) indicates the emphasis in the latest edition of this well-established textbook. Added to the coverage of particulate solids, solid-fluid systems, packed beds and the common mass transfer processes are new chapters on adsorption, ion exchange, chromatographic methods and membrane separations; also, centrifugal separations have been restored to a separate chapter, as in the first two editions. The new chapters follow the same general pattern as the others: first, a description of the importance of the process, then the fundamentals, including equilibria and kinetics where appropriate, and finally descriptions of the applications and equipment. Included in these chapters are such recent developments as moving beds for adsorption and ion exchange, pervaporation and bquid membranes. Revisions (or the lack of them) in other sections arc not ah as satisfactory. Activity coefttcient equations for non-ideal solutions have been added to the distillation chapter, but the most recently mentioned are those of Margules and van Laar, and the Gibbs-Duhem equation is given incorrectly. None of the work done in the last 20 years on
/
this artist’s careful account of his favoured approach. For this reason, and for its copious worked examples, I welcome this book and hope that it will be widely read. W. R. PATERSON Department
of Chemical Engineering
University of Cambridge Pembroke Street Cambridge CB2 3RA, U.K.
agitated vessels is referred to in the leaching and gas absorption sections, where a 1966 paper is described as recent and the little information given about k,a in agitated vessels is based on publications in 1966 and 1967. This edition retains the attractive features of its predecessors: clear descriptions of the processes, with excellent illustrations and very high quality photographs, together with a number of worked examples as well as tutorial problems. Also, there are improvements in the clarity of the type and diagrams. However, the increase in the number of pages of text from 807 to 968 is accompanied by an increase in price to a level which, even for the softcover version, is high for most students. Finally, a general impression: for the reviewer, who was a chemical engineering undergraduate about 40 years ago, this volume was a return to the methods of his youth, with analytical solutions, relationships between dimensionless groups, graphical procedures-and no computer programs. But the increasr‘ng applications of computer-based techniques must cast doubts on this approach, and raise the possibility that this volume may come to be regarded more as a memorial to the methods of the twentieth century than as a guide to the procedures for the twenty-first. W. J. McMANAMEY School of Chemical Engineering The University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT,
U.K.