Course overview
This two-part course will develop the students’ ability to apply chemical engineering principles to the integrated design of a nominated chemical plant through team-based project work.
In Part A, students analyse alternative process routes using sustainability and systems-thinking frameworks, apply decision-making tools to select technologies, processes, and utilities, and perform material and heat balance calculations. Students will also prepare flow sheets and develop flow diagrams that define the plant’s major functions and operating process steps.
In Part B, students apply rigorous design methods to size and specify plant equipment, perform energy balances, evaluate process safety and process control systems, produce a piping and instrumentation diagram, and a plant layout drawing. Students will also assess environmental and sustainability impacts and conduct detailed process economic evaluations.
Across both parts, students demonstrate professional engineering practice by completing a pre-feasibility study and a front-end engineering design. The project outcomes are communicated through structured design reports and an oral presentation to a range of stakeholders. This course aligns with the program’s intent to apply chemical engineering knowledge to solve large complex problems relevant to industrial applications.
- Dealing with Data and Tools
- Overall Plant-Wide Functions
- Industrial Process Safety & Assessment of Hazards (Part 1)
Course learning outcomes
- Analyse and critically evaluate information related to a design problem to identify relevant factors that inform a feasible solution.
- Apply engineering principles to develop conceptual or preliminary process designs for open-ended process industry problems.
- Integrate process operations, safety, utilities, and relevant industry practices to develop a coherent system-level engineering plant design.
- Evaluate the economic performance of a proposed plant using a Class 4 cost estimate, lifecycle costing, availability considerations to support the final design decisions.
- Perform a hazard and operability (HAZOP) study for a high-risk section of the plant, including layers of protection, plantwide control considerations and a piping and instrumentation diagram to assess and justify process safety and control measures.
- Perform a sustainability and environmental assessment of a proposed plant using quantitative metrics across multiple impact categories to inform the design choices.
- Produce a comprehensive detailed design report for an integrated process plant, including rigorous equipment sizing, flow sheeting and calculations, optimisation, and sensitivity analysis that meets professional engineering standards.