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Preliminary chemical engineering plant design
The Chemical Engineering Journal, 14 (1977) 229 - 232 @ Elsevier Sequoia S.A., Lausanne - Printed in the Netherlands
Book Reviews
to cost information. As a whole this strikes me as more of a useful compendium or handbook than as a textbook on design. It is useful but I will value it more for the information it contains than for the insight it gives into how to use this information.
Preliminary Chemical Engineering Plant Design By William
York,
D. Baasel; published 1976; price US $33.
by Elsevier,
New
At a time when design in chemical engineering is enjoying a much needed revival of interest, a new book on the subject is something to look forward to. Chemical engineers have long prided themselves that they are much more concerned with design than most other engineers. The emphasis in the earliest texts was on the design function of the chemical engineer, albeit that this was confined to individual unit operations. However, for the last 20 years there has been an increasing preoccupation with an analytical approach to the subject and it is only very recently that teachers and writers have started to be concerned again with design. This gap, however, has perhaps served one useful purpose in that it has enabled chemical engineers to realize that design goes far beyond the specification of the hardware for a particular unit operation. From this has come the development of formal rules and procedures which enable the process system design to be approached in a way that heretofore was not possible. In respect of the first of these trains of thought, this book can be said to be reasonably satisfactory and its coverage is certainly comprehensive. It is disappointing, however, that there is almost no mention of what to me is one of the most important single advances ever made in chemical engineering, i.e. the formalization of system design procedures and the application of these techniques to process design problems. The chapter headings (site selection, layout, process control, energy and manpower needs, cost estimation and so on) indicate the conventional, i.e. pre-1970, approach. There are considerable sections on detailed costing and planning and, although appearing somewhat as an afterthought at the end of the book, a section on pollution forms an excellent introduction to this topic for the design engineer. There are several useful appendices with data ranging from simple conversion factors
D. C. FRESHWATER
Electrostatic Control
Hazards: Their Evaluation and
By Heinz Haase; published by Verlag Chemie, York, 1976; x + 125 pp.; price DM 24.00.
New
of the authors Stutials Gefahr first published in
This book is a translation sche Elektrizitlit
1968, produced in response to demand from English-speaking countries. It contains chapters on physical principles, measurement techniques, the elimination of static electricity as a hazard and the control and elimination of hazardous static electricity - case studies. The problems considered are mainly those of the process industries. The book is clearly intended to assist engineers to make quantitative assessments of static electricity hazards. The case studies give quantitative calculations and are therefore particularly valuable. F. P. LEES
Substitute
Natural Gas
By W. L. Lom and A. F. Williams; Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1976.
published
by
An interesting commentary on how completely natural gas has become a part of everyday life is provided by the great amount of research being done on providing suitable sub229
Book Reviews
to cost information. As a whole this strikes me as more of a useful compendium or handbook than as a textbook on design. It is useful but I will value it more for the information it contains than for the insight it gives into how to use this information.
Preliminary Chemical Engineering Plant Design By William
York,
D. Baasel; published 1976; price US $33.
by Elsevier,
New
At a time when design in chemical engineering is enjoying a much needed revival of interest, a new book on the subject is something to look forward to. Chemical engineers have long prided themselves that they are much more concerned with design than most other engineers. The emphasis in the earliest texts was on the design function of the chemical engineer, albeit that this was confined to individual unit operations. However, for the last 20 years there has been an increasing preoccupation with an analytical approach to the subject and it is only very recently that teachers and writers have started to be concerned again with design. This gap, however, has perhaps served one useful purpose in that it has enabled chemical engineers to realize that design goes far beyond the specification of the hardware for a particular unit operation. From this has come the development of formal rules and procedures which enable the process system design to be approached in a way that heretofore was not possible. In respect of the first of these trains of thought, this book can be said to be reasonably satisfactory and its coverage is certainly comprehensive. It is disappointing, however, that there is almost no mention of what to me is one of the most important single advances ever made in chemical engineering, i.e. the formalization of system design procedures and the application of these techniques to process design problems. The chapter headings (site selection, layout, process control, energy and manpower needs, cost estimation and so on) indicate the conventional, i.e. pre-1970, approach. There are considerable sections on detailed costing and planning and, although appearing somewhat as an afterthought at the end of the book, a section on pollution forms an excellent introduction to this topic for the design engineer. There are several useful appendices with data ranging from simple conversion factors
D. C. FRESHWATER
Electrostatic Control
Hazards: Their Evaluation and
By Heinz Haase; published by Verlag Chemie, York, 1976; x + 125 pp.; price DM 24.00.
New
of the authors Stutials Gefahr first published in
This book is a translation sche Elektrizitlit
1968, produced in response to demand from English-speaking countries. It contains chapters on physical principles, measurement techniques, the elimination of static electricity as a hazard and the control and elimination of hazardous static electricity - case studies. The problems considered are mainly those of the process industries. The book is clearly intended to assist engineers to make quantitative assessments of static electricity hazards. The case studies give quantitative calculations and are therefore particularly valuable. F. P. LEES
Substitute
Natural Gas
By W. L. Lom and A. F. Williams; Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1976.
published
by
An interesting commentary on how completely natural gas has become a part of everyday life is provided by the great amount of research being done on providing suitable sub229