About
the Book
Gregory K. McMillan
Senior Fellow
Solutia Inc.
“At the undergraduate chemical engineering level, the traditional, highly mathematical approach misses the point of what knowledge of control and dynamics is needed by the practicing process engineer. If BS graduates in chemical engineering simply understood the basics of time based process dynamics and control (capacitance, dead time, PID control action and controller tuning, inventory, throughput, and distillation control), the impact on process design and plant operations throughout the CPI would be immense. Today, these skills are among the least developed in BS chemical engineering graduates, despite having taken the requisite traditional process control course. This text is particularly suitable for any college, university, or technical training program seeking to provide its graduates with a truly practical and applied background in process dynamics and control. With today's widespread commercial availability of high fidelity process simulation software, the understanding gained from this text can be immediately and directly applied.”
Thomas C. Hanson
Senior Engineering Associate
Praxair, Inc.
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“Several years ago, a recruiter from a major chemical company told me that his company was hesitant to interview students that indicated a first preference in the area of process control because his company ‘did not have any jobs that made use of laplace transforms and frequency domain skills’. This was an excellent example of the mismatch between what is frequently taught in universities, and what often gets applied in industry. After teaching chemical process control for over 30 years, I feel strongly that good process control is synonymous with good chemical engineering. Industry would be well served if all chemical engineering graduates, regardless of career paths, had a better, more practical working knowledge of process dynamics and control. I think the approach taken in this text is right on target, and is consistent with how we teach at the University of Tennessee. It provides a good hands-on feel for process dynamics and process control, but more importantly, it presents these concepts as fundamentals of chemical engineering. For undergraduate programs looking to transition away from the traditional mathematical-based approach to a more applied, hands-on approach, this text will be an invaluable aid.”
Charles F. Moore
Professor of Chemical Engineering
University of Tennessee
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“What BS degree chemical engineers need is a base level understanding of differential equations, process dynamics, dynamic modeling of the basic unit operations (in the time domain), basic control algorithms (such as PID), cascade structures and feed forward structures. With these basic tools and an understanding of how to apply them, they can solve most of their control problems themselves. What they do not need is the theory and mathematics that usually surround the teaching of process control such as frequency domain analysis. Graduate education in process control is the place to introduce these concepts.”
James J. Downs
Senior Engineering Associate
Eastman Chemical Company
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