(416b) Better Integration of Process Design/Control Principles in Engineering Labs

Where is the best place to teach basic principles of process control, data reconciliation, nonequilibrium analysis of multistage processes, statistical design of experiments, design of alarms and interlocks for a process, and hazard analysis? Maybe you can get some of it across in the classroom, but we contend that you can probably do it better in the labs. While many Engineering programs are reducing active lab experiences, with the help of veteran industrial practitioners and a partnership with data acquisition/control companies (Emerson Process Management, National Instruments, and Honywell IAC), we've expanded ours. They are now more representative of the upper level curriculum, both reinforcing and in some ways anticipating several topics. For example, we use a ternary distillation experiment to teach fundamentals of a nonequilibrium transport package (ChemSep 5®), a polymerization/separation experiment to introduce students to alarm/interlock problems, and pH neutralization, heat exchanger train and the previously mentioned experiments both for introducing process control concepts and for more advanced topics such as dynamic modeling of processes and online composition control. We are even giving students valuable exposure to topics that, while important, are discussed cursorily (if at all) in typical classes ? e.g., two-phase flow and tracer analysis in a combined packed bed/fluidized bed/nonideal reactor experiment, and crystallization in a newly designed experiment for salicylic acid (intermediate in production of aspirin) purification. Of course, by combining some standalone process simulation with the experimentation, the students also learn the use of process simulators (e.g., ASPEN®, HYSYS®) better and faster.

The capabilities and ease of use of modern data acquisition/control systems, the advent of paperless labs, and the familiarity of students with Excel as a notebook platform now give us the opportunity to make labs less an exercise in drudgery and more the locus of active learning for the entire department. We'll discuss how this has been accomplished at LSU over the last seven years, and specify what worked and what didn't. We'll also discuss some of the advantages/disadvantages from a typical department's perspective of all three of our data acquisition/control systems (Emerson Process Management's Delta V®; National Instruments' Labview® and Honeywell IAC's TPS®; their characteristics span the space of all such systems currently available.