Chemical Product and Process Design Courses
For over 70 years, the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has offered a two-course sequence in product and process design. The Fall course, CBE 400, is a lecture course that introduces the basics of product and process design. The Spring course, CBE 459, has been devoted entirely to the solution of design problems in groups of two, three, or four students. Timely problems are provided mostly by consultants from the local chemical industry who visit the University on Tuesday afternoons to assist the students throughout the Spring semester.
For a description of the courses, see Capstone Chemical Product and Process Design Courses: Industry and Faculty Interactions, an article prepared for the Capstone Design Conference, University of Illinois, May 31- June 2, 2012. Also, see the course syllabus for CBE 400 and CBE 459, the list of Reserve Books in the Rosengarten Reserve Room, Ground Floor of the Van Pelt Library, and a website that provides special assistance for CBE 400-459 students provided by the Librarians.
Student Design Projects
The 2015-2016 Industrial Consultants have provided projects (2015-2016), currently being solved by 11 design groups (2015-2016). See the schedule of visits by the industrial consultants for Spring 2016. Also, see our recommendations for executing the CBE 459 design project in the Spring of 2016.
Since 1978, the Melvin C. Molstad Prize has been awarded annually to the most outstanding design group in the senior class. Also, since 2000, three of our best design groups have competed in the Engineering Alumni Design Competition.
Teaching Tool Development
During the summer of 1994, work was begun to create a multimedia module to teach the basics of the simulation of chemical processes using the ASPEN PLUS and HYSYS simulators. An article entitled "An Interactive Approach to Teaching Steady-state Simulation of Chemical Processes" was prepared for the Computer Application in Engineering Education journal.
From 1996-2000, the two courses were upgraded in cooperation with colleagues at Princeton and Lehigh Universities and funded by the NSF Combined Research-Curriculum Development Program. For an overview of the changes, see the Project Description. Also, see the paper entitled "Experiences in Team-Teaching a Process Design Course Covering Steady-state Synthesis, Optimization, and Control."
Recently, the third edition of our textbook Product and Process Design Principles: Synthesis, Analysis and Evaluation (Seider, W. D., J. D. Seader, D. R. Lewin and S. Widagdo, Third Edition, Wiley, 2009) was published. You can access the multimedia module from the Instructor or Student Companion websites. Click on using Process Simulators in Chemical Engineering Software. Also, you can obtain 71 design problem statements. Click on PDF Files, then Appendix II.pdf.
Students of CBE 400, click here to check the latest homework assignments and course announcements.