DESIGN PROJECT BENG CHEMICAL ENGINEERING - 2025/6

Module Overview

The detailed design of a chemical process paying appropriate consideration to sustainability, economic and operational feasibility and engineering practicality is a key skill for chemical engineers and requires a robust understanding of all aspects of chemical engineering.  This module comprises a sequence of learning opportunities designed to integrate and consolidate most of the fundamental science and engineering expertise acquired during the previous levels of the degree programme.  The assessment is design with 67% based on individual work and 33% based on group activity.

 

Module provider

Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Module Leader

PUTRANTO Aditya (Chst Chm Eng)

Number of Credits: 45

ECTS Credits: 22.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 6

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None.  

Module content

Indicative content includes:

Process Design                      Module organisation, group organisation, individual process area and roll  responsibilities, report format and deadlines, Turnitin, use of library resources, physical                                                         property data

 

Process Plant Safety                Process plant control

                                   Statutory safety requirements in design

                                   Safety in process plant operation (video)

                                   Area classification/plant layout

                                   Pressure Hazards, reaction hazards, reaction runaway

                                   Fires/explosions

                                   Start-up/shutdown, ESD

                                   Hazop

                                   Common errors in design

 

Process Design Feedback/Guidance Meetings

                                                Process development

                                   Block diagrams and operating conditions

                                   Process integration

                                   Equipment requirements

                                   Material and energy balances

                                   Process control

                                   Layout

                                   Hazop

 

Business Plan                         Nature of projects, factors for success, project development

                                   Capital cost estimation, Lang factors

                                   Recuirrent and operating costs

                                   Discounting, DCF & NPV, criteria for comparative profitability

                                   Project profitability profiles

                                                Sustainability concepts, implications for process design

                                   Assessment of sustainability, IChemE sustainability metrics

                                   Application of IChemE sustainability metrics to process design, generation of design alternatives

                                   GHG emmissions, impact of carbon cost (EU Emission Trading Scheme), implication and evaluation of design changes 

 

Equipment Design                  Equipment specification

                                   Design procedures

                                   Physical property data collection and prediction                   

                                   Equipment design and optimisation

                                   Materials of construction, physical design, fabrication

                                                Equipment data sheets

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

The student will be required to make an individual presentation instead of a group presentation to academic supervisors during the late summer assessment period.

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate the full range of learning outcomes via written submissions and oral presentation.  The assessment has been design to allow individual assessment for 60% of the assessed activity with 40% based on group activity.  To facilitate this individual responsibilities within the group activities are selected by student and these are so designed that information transfer between group members and effective coordination of the overall group activity is essential to the satisfactory completion of the project.      

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• Contribution to Assessed Feedback/Guidance meetings -  10%, (LO1 and LO2)


• Process Design Report -  40%, 180 pages + appendices, (LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4, LO8)


• Business Plan – 18%, 40 pages + appendices (LO2, LO5, LO8)


• Equipment Design Report – 29%, 100 pages + appendices, (LO6, LO7. LO8, LO9)


• Process Control Coursework – 3%, 2 pages + PFD, (LO4)

Formative assessment

Block diagram – week 2

Area simulation – week 3

Equipment sizing procedures – week 4

Initial sustainability assessment – week 4

Area equipment sizing – week 5

Initial CAPEX based on area equipment sizing – week 5

Area PFD – week 6

Outline Layout/Utilities PFD/Hazard Analysis – week 6

OPEX and outline process profitability analysis – week 6

Updated sustainability assessment – week 7

Equipment Design Specification – weeks 9 and 10

 

Feedback

Weekly verbal feedback during feedback/guidance meetings, written feedback on area simulations, equipment sizing procedures, area equipment sizing calculations, area PFDs, capital and operating cost estimations, sustainability analysis and impact on process design and equipment design specification, design procedures and calculations

Comprehensive verbal feedback on the last day of the semester on the submitted reports (double marking all the reports and giving feedback before this date is impossible). 

Module aims

• A systematic appreciation and critical awareness of industrial scale process and equipment design and their importance to chemical industry
• The experience of integrating the design methodology and fundamental analysis taught earlier in the programme through the completion of the process design of a complex industrially relevant production process working within a small compatable group of BEng students
• A comprehensive appreciation of the complexity of interactions (process, economic, sustainability , operability and safety)  which must be considered and analysed during a process design with understanding of the business criteria to be met for the project to be approved for project execution.
• A critical awareness of the importance of properly integrating equipment design with the optimisation of a process design
• A comprehensive appreciation of the need for accurate and verifyable physical property data for us in design
• The experience of carrying out an optimised detailed design of a complex item of chemical process plant

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

• Allow students to work in a group (4 to 6 members for the process design, costing and sustainability and 2 members for the equipment design) and experience the design process appropriate to that required by the IChemE Accreditation for BEng students in Chemical Engineering


• Allow students to experience a learning environment of supervised feedback/guidance meetings with two supervisors in which they report on their progress against targets set during the previous meeting and receive immediate verbal feedback, ask for and receives clarification of their understanding/interpretation and agree a set of targets for their group and individual work to be achieved by the next meeting.


• Act as independent learners supported by the tutorial system with additional timetabled but voluntary contact hours with supervisors, controlled by a docket system.  Each design groups has dockets (2 per group member) each permitting 10 minutes discussion with a supervisor for either the entire group or part of the group and each group member has 13 dockets (8 for Process Design/Business Plan and 5 for Equipment Design) permitting 5 minute of contact on a one-one basis with a supervisor.  Non docketed contact time with supervisors is strongly discouraged.    

The learning and teaching methods include:

• Lectures                                                                     6 hours per week for 2 weeks


• Group/individual feedback/guidance meetings           2 hour per week for 13 weeks (average)


• Independent learning                                                  31 hours per week for 13 weeks (average)

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: ENG3193

Other information

The School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the following areas¿¿ 

Digital capabilities –  Students are instructed in the basics of the chemical process simulation package ChemCAD and then asked to use it, if possible, to produce a heat and mass balance for their area.  Students may also use a sustainability database for their environmental impact calculations.

Employability –  This module corresponds to the very common activities in industry of process and equipment design.  As such this is the module that best prepares students for the workplace and is very often a module that students are asked to discuss at second interview.

Global and cultural capabilities -  the process design section is interactive and collaborative with groups that are selected on mixed ability that commonly represents a wealth of nationalities and backgrounds.  This reflects the highly globalised world of chemical engineering which uses the common languages of Mathematics, chemical equations and English (most big projects outside China and Russia will employ companies and individuals from many nations and use English for verbal and written communication)

Resourcefulness and resilience – Students are supported in the teamworking element of the process design by meetings with an industrial project manager (a former project manager for BP Chemicals at the time of writing).  Working in teams is part of the student experience but are also very relevant to the workplace.  The feedback from these sessions is aimed at increasing resourcefulness and resilience.

Sustainability – About half of the business plan is about quantifying the environmental impact of the chemical process being proposed.  Students are also prompted to think about environmental impact of the route they are using earlier in the project.  The other half of the business plan is about economic viability of the process which if positive will lead to employment in the place where the plant will be built.  Therefore, the three pillars of sustainability are covered in detail in this report.

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.