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Fundamentals of Chemical Engineering (CHEN20012)
Undergraduate level 2Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
Undergraduate programs will be delivered on campus. Graduate programs will mainly be delivered on campus, with dual-delivery and online options available to a select number of subjects within some programs.
To learn more, visit 2023 Course and subject delivery.
To learn more, visit 2023 Course and subject delivery.
About this subject
- Overview
- Eligibility and requirements
- Assessment
- Dates and times
- Further information
- Timetable(opens in new window)
Contact information
Semester 1
Dr Catherine Sutton
Email: ccsutton@unimelb.edu.au
Overview
| Availability | Semester 1 |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
How do you make water safe to drink? How do you capture hazardous emissions to protect the environment? How do you create energy, food, medicines and other products that are essential to our everyday lives?
This subject begins with a broad overview of the environmental and social challenges facing humanity that require chemical engineering solutions, as well as the wide variety of jobs available to chemical engineers.
The subject will then focus on a series of foundational competencies that chemical engineers need to understand to address these big picture problems. It will introduce flow diagrams for conceiving processes in new ways, building up to reading detailed engineering schematics. These will draw on real case studies like how chocolate bars are made, how petroleum is refined and how pharmaceuticals are manufactured.
Students will then investigate a processing facility by building their own bench-scale plant. Students will have the opportunity to use a hands-on tools workshop to build equipment ranging from small valves and temperature sensors up to larger-scale equipment, which can be assembled into a final flow rig. Understanding how the equipment works will drive questions about the underlying physics, such as thermodynamics (for designing heat transfer equipment)
and reaction kinetics (for building reactors), which will be discussed in accompanying classes. At the end of the subject, all parts will be drawn back together into a single flow rig with an accompanying piping and instrumentation diagram, a detailed schematic for designing and controlling the plant.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject, the student is expected to:
- Recognise reactions taking place within ideal reactors
- Define and scope engineering problems and formulate suitable problem-solving strategies
- Model real gas behaviour
- Develop and interpret process flow diagrams, process and instrumentation diagrams
- Apply basic thermodynamic relationships to real problems
- Discuss the principles of sustainable design and development
- Recognise the difference between safe and unsafe industrial practices.
Generic skills
- Ability to apply knowledge of basic science and engineering fundamentals
- Ability to undertake problem identification, formulation and solution
- Ability to utilise a systems approach to design and operational performance
- Understand the principles of sustainable design and development.
Last updated: 19 September 2023