PURDUE UNIVERSITY

ChE 435 Spring 2016

NOTES ON THE ANALYSIS/DESIGN PROCESS

The objective of the project is to design a system or process to accomplish a task. The focus of your work
should always be on this objective. Any experimental work must be justified and approved by your
supervisor. At the planning conference, you must present a preliminary design using typical process
parameters and variables, listing the quantities you know, those you do not know, and those you must obtain
experimentally.

PLANNING CONFERENCE
On the fourth period of each project, each team will meet with the supervisor to present plans (We do
these reviews in the laboratory). Each person will give about a five-minute presentation of their area of
responsibility. You must provide copies of your summary/plans for your supervisor to review and grade.
You must have a preliminary design, be able to justify any experimental work, and know what you want
the experimental program to provide for your design.

SOME GUIDELINES ON DESIGN PROJECTS-OVERALL APPROACH

Review of relevant principles and concepts and library work are major parts of a design project. Use the
following link prepared specifically for this course: http://guides.lib.purdue.edu/che435

Conduct a literature search with the aid of the Scifinder and Engineering Village databases.
Start the design project by sketching a design flow sheet; keep improving it as you gain more knowledge
or information.
Start developing a physical/mathematical model of the key parts of the design (define terms, write
equations, etc.) and keep improving it.
Identify key ideas of the design.
Decide what physical properties and parameters you need to determine from your own experimental
work.
Identify what apparatus is available to you and determine what experiments you need to perform to
obtain the physical properties you need for your design.
Determine how you will use the model to interpret your experiments and extract the needed information.
Conduct your experimental program
Conduct your design and experimental work in parallel, using continual feedback to fine tune both or
make some changes if warranted. This is a team project so all team members must be actively involved in
the design/experimental/strategy/etc. The leader is responsible for coordination and planning.
You must use your own data in the final design unless you can give compelling justification otherwise
(you should compare your results to literature data).
Specify clearly and justify any assumptions you make, define ranges of parameters where data are
needed, and specify design boundaries.

OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS/ISSUES

Make sure you know the difference between an assumption and a fact.
What is the objective?
How long does it take the equipment to reach steady-state after a change in operating conditions?
Do I understand the chemistry and the thermodynamics involved?
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 Do I understand the safety of my experiment, and have I read the MSDS?
What trends do I see in the data?
What information must I obtain experimentally? Have I defined primary and secondary experiments?
What variables (independent and dependent) do I have experimentally, and which are more important to
the process?
What assumptions am I making for both the design and the experiment? Why? Are they valid?
Am I planning the most efficient use of my time?
Are my units consistent? Am I using the correct number of significant figures?
What assumptions do I need to make about densities, etc.?
Am I changing more than one variable at a time? Am I taking data at the appropriate rate?
What devices do I need to calibrate?
Am I comfortable with precision vs. accuracy?
Do I understand the model? Have I done replicates? What parameters do I need for design?
What do I need to know and what may I safely ignore? Which are the relevant dimensionless numbers?
What variables should I be holding constant? What does the literature have to say about all this?
Have I checked Perry's lately? What resources are available for similar systems?
What are the sources of error and in what order of importance?

DESIGN
How will I optimize down time, processing, etc.?
What is the optimal material of construction? Is the equipment standard or specially designed?
What am I trying to accomplish and does this design do everything?
What should I plot? Safety factors? Are the system dimensions reasonable?
Does my design make sense? Assumptions?

ORAL REPORT
Focus is on the design problem, what requires experimental data and what does not?
What theory is useful for this design? What assumptions were made? Why?
What did the laboratory equipment allow you do to?
How do the experiments you conducted address the design problem?
How does error affect your final design?
Give a status report on where you are and where you are heading.
Your report is to your supervisor, so be thorough and brief (ten to twelve minutes is all you have).
Elegant visuals are nice but not necessary for the presentation. Spend that extra time on content and NOT
on window dressing.
If you are talking and there is no visual showing, you forgot a visual. Work that out before you come.
You want to be prepared technically.

FOR THE REPORT:

Am I organized? Have I listed my assumptions? What was our design logic?
Have I put together an appendix with complete sample calculations?
Have I presented my data in useful ways (axes in proper units, flow sheets, tables organized, etc.)?
Have I used consistent units? Have I referenced properly?
Have we analyzed the effect of experimental error on key design parameters?