Chemical Engineering 475
Unit Operations Laboratory I
Fall 2005
Instructors: Michael Beliveau; 223 CB; 422-3921; beliveau@byu.edu
Neil Giles; 350T CB; gilesnf@wiltecresearch.com (Section 1)
Randy Lewis; 350S CB; 422-7863; randy.lewis@byu.edu (Section 2)
Class Place and Time: Rm 217 CB,
TuTh 1:00-3:50 pm (Section 1)
MW 2:00-4:50 pm (Section 2)
Teaching Assistants: Leslie Pagel; lesliep@byu.net (Section 1)
Greg Gessel; gmg24@byu.net (Section 2)
Objectives: The overall goal is to teach students to think and communicate as engineers.
Educationally, the following competencies are identified as objectives of this course:
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Students will gain hands on experience with chemical processes, units, and corresponding equipment through lab experiments.
Students will demonstrate an understanding of basic engineering statistics in their laboratory reports.
Students will understand and be able to describe the physical significance of key dimensionless quantities including Re and f.
Students will understand qualitatively conduction, forced and free convection, and radiation and have experience with one or
more modes during experiments.
Students will be able to analyze systems containing multiple resistances to heat transfer during laboratory experiments.
Students will understand convective heat transfer and be able to use heat transfer coefficients as they relate to the UO Laboratory
experiments.
Students will demonstrate familiarity and experience with the measurement of process variables (e.g., P, T, flow rate, conc.).
Students will demonstrate knowledge of basic laboratory techniques.
Students will be able to use the scientific method and problem solving strategies, as well as statistical methods, to design and
carry out experiments in order to solve engineering problems.
Students will demonstrate familiarity and experience with the application of process control principles on an industrial control
system.
Students will demonstrate familiarity and experience with chemical process equipment.
Students will demonstrate an ability to solve engineering problems.
Students will be able to integrate topics from various chemical engineering courses to solve realistic problems during lab
experiments.
Students will exhibit critical and creative thinking skills for analysis and evaluation of problems and cause-effect relationships.
Students will be able to obtain and evaluate appropriate input information/data from databases, handbooks, correlations,
experiments, literature, etc.
Students will be able to rationalize units, make order of magnitude estimates, assess reasonableness of solutions, and select
appropriate levels of solution sophistication.
Students will understand and practice safe laboratory and chemicals-handling principles.
Students will be able to give effective, well-organized oral presentations including the handling of questions and the use of
appropriate visual aids.
Students will be able to write effective, well-organized technical reports, including formal engineering reports and short letter
reports.
Students will demonstrate effective reading of technical material.
Students will demonstrate effective interpretation of graphical data.
Students will practice good teamwork principles.
Students will demonstrate experience working together in teams.
Students will be able to do preliminary size and performance calculations on shell-and-tube heat exchangers from experimental
data.
Students will be able to calculate and use overall heat transfer coefficients in designing heat exchangers.
Students will understand practical considerations of heat exchangers including types of heat exchangers, materials of
construction, and fouling.
Students will be able to design flow systems involving pipes, valves, fittings, and pumps for Newtonian fluids.
Professional Environment
To the extent possible, the professional engineering environment will be simulated. You will be
grouped into teams of 2 or 3 people (a different team for each project) and will be given projects in the
form of memos from your supervisor (instructor). The projects will intentionally be open-ended, and
your team will respond to each project by conducting experiments, performing analyses, drawing
conclusions, and making recommendations. Each member of the team will submit his/her own report
as if he/she was the team leader submitting the only report about the work. In addition, as a
professional, you will be required to maintain professional standards of attendance, teamwork, and
safety practices throughout the semester.
Attendance: In keeping with the goal of simulating the professional environment, you must be in
attendance (“at work”) for the entire lab period on each day of the lab. For emergencies or other
pressing circumstances, please communicate with Mr. Beliveau, Dr. Giles, or Dr. Lewis, just as you
would with an employer. All the experimental work will be done in class, and you should also try to do
as much data analysis and report writing in class as possible.
Teamwork: You will be assigned to a different 2- or 3-member team for each project. It is expected
that you will work cooperatively, sharing a fair portion of the work-load. At the conclusion of each
project, the other members of your team will be required to evaluate how well you performed as a team
member.
Safety: The following safety precautions are required by all (these are not optional):
1. No food is allowed in the laboratory or in the computer area.
2. All personnel in the laboratory area are required to wear safety glasses, long pants, and covered
shoes (no sandals).
3. All students are required to complete ChEn 311; this course includes the HAZCOM training
course.
4. Experimental work should be done during the regular class periods. If additional time is
needed in the laboratory, you must clear it with Dr. Giles or Dr. Lewis and make an
appointment for the use of the laboratory with Mr. Beliveau. At least two partners must be
present during those additional hours (no one is permitted to work in the lab alone).
Resources
Written Materials: No official text is used for this course, but printed handouts will be provided. In
addition, some textbooks and engineering handbooks are kept in the laboratory bookcase for your use,
but please do not remove them from the room, and please return them to the bookcase at the end of
each period. A significant amount of information is also available on the course website at
www.et.byu.edu/~beliveau/uolab. Of course, your textbooks from previous courses will also be
helpful.
Hardware: Instruments, supplies, manuals, etc., may be checked out from the Laboratory Supervisor,
Mr. Michael Beliveau, or from the T.A. All materials checked out during the laboratory must be
returned to the stockroom at the end of the laboratory period.
Lectures: Brief lectures will be given in 217 CB in order to provide guidance about report writing, data
analysis, etc. We hope that these will be helpful, and we welcome your feedback on these lectures, as
well as suggestions for additional topics.
Project Requirements: Three projects will be given during the semester. The following must be
completed for each project:
Requirement
Permission to Start
Who?
Team
Preplan Report
Team
Details
Submit at the beginning of the second lab period. You must review the form with an
Instructor or TA prior to starting any experiments.
Submit at the beginning of the second lab period. The Preplan should be a minimum
of two pages but should be of sufficient length to include the following:
The problem to be solved or decision to be made
Theoretical analysis (equations, assumptions, etc.) associated with the problem
Experimental procedures including experimental design (values of operating
variables, number of replicates, etc.), measurements that will be made (which
parameters, how often, etc.), system issues (warm-up times, assuring steady-state,
etc.), and safety issues
4. Data analysis (including a sample calculation!!)
5. Method(s) for establishing credibility of your data
Submit approximately half-way through the project. The progress report (excluding
figures and tables) should be a minimum of two pages but should be of sufficient
length to include the following:
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3.
Progress Report
Team
Final Written Report
Individual
Final Oral Report
Team
Notebook
Individual
1. Changes in the Preplan and the reasons for the changes
2. Summarized experimental data with appropriate figures and/or tables.
3. Preliminary data analysis
4. Preliminary conclusions
Submit a 7-10 page report for the first two projects. You are required to maintain your
own record of the experiment in a separate laboratory notebook and to write your own
report. Thinking and analysis may be shared by the entire team, but your contribution
must be a major part of the project and certainly a major part of your report, for which
you will assume total responsibility. Figures and tables may not be copied from your
partner. Excerpts from the Preplan and Progress Report may be used but they must be
referenced. Submission of written project reports will be required at the beginning of
the lab period according to the attached schedule. Reports turned in late without prior
approval from Mr. Beliveau, Dr. Giles, or Dr. Lewis will be penalized, and missing
class to finish a late report will add to the penalty. Please work ahead to ensure that
your report is finished on time.
Present an oral report for the third project. The oral report should be approximately
20 minutes with 5 minutes for questions. The oral report content should be similar to
the content of the written reports. The oral presentation should be evenly distributed
among the team members. The team must provide a copy of the data and data analysis
on the day of the oral report.
Submit an individual notebook. As is standard professional practice, all pertinent
details of each project must be recorded in ink in your individual project notebook
(one for each student), which should be a bound notebook (spiral notebooks are not
acceptable) with pre-printed page numbers. Completeness and neatness of the project
notebook will be a part of your grade. If questions arise about the accuracy and
validity of the data in your reports, it should be possible to answer those questions by
referring to the project notebook. Recorded details should include but not be limited
to the following:
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7.
Additional Assignments
dates and times when experimental work was performed
names of team members performing the experimental work (all team members
must sign each notebook at the end of each day’s entry)
specifications of all equipment used, instrument calibrations
all raw data taken by hand
data calculations and error analysis
summaries of final data
photocopies of key graphs, equipment specifications, draft tables and graphs, etc.
taped into the notebook
LabView. LabView instruction will be provided in class during the first two lab periods. An in-class
assignment will be given during the second lab period.
Statistics. A statistics assignment will be due at the beginning of the lab period following the statistics
instruction.
Grading
The LabView and Statistics Assignments are 15 points each. The possible points for each project are
shown below:
Preplan
Introduction write-up
Methods/procedures write-up
Theoretical/Analytical write-up
Progress Report
Final Report (written or oral)
Notebook
Evaluation by team/instructor
TOTAL
Project #1
20
15
15
15
20
100
20
15
220
Project #2
20
Project #3
20
20
100
20
15
175
20
100
20
15
175
There is a total of 600 points. Student achieving the following points are guaranteed the following
grades. The instructors reserve the right to lower the points corresponding to the letter grades
depending on natural breaks in the course grade distribution and their perception of overall class
performance.
A
A-
565-600 points
540-564 points
B+
B
B-
520-539 points
500-519 points
480-499 points
C+
C
C-
460-479 points
440-459 points
420-439 points
D
F
360-419 points
< 360 points
Honesty.
The honor code at BYU must be followed at all times. As previously stated, you must do your own
work for the individual assignments. You may discuss data reduction, experimental results, etc. but
you must write your own report and prepare your own graphs and figures. Plagiarism is not tolerated in
any profession, including chemical engineering. Plagiarism includes copying your partners work or
copying reference material without proper references. If you need to include information in your report
that is not your own, you should paraphrase the information and provide a reference. Academic
dishonesty will result in a grade of F for the course.