Syllabus

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

CHE 451 – CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN II

SPRING 2009

Web Site Address: http://courses.ncsu.edu/che451/lec/001/

Instructors:

Dr. Lisa Bullard (lisa_bullard@ncsu.edu)
2012 EB1
(919) 515-7455Office Hours: By appointment

Dr. Steve Peretti (peretti@eos.ncsu.edu)
2042 EB1
(919) 515-6397Office Hours: By appointment

Course Overview: CHE 451 builds on the skills practiced in ChE 450 by considering questions of process integration, safety, environmental acceptability, controllability, and optimization in the development of a process engineering design. While your design may resemble commercially practiced processes, it must also exhibit understanding of many issues, which must be considered before a proposed new chemical plant would be approved by industrial management. Physical feasibility, while obviously essential, is only one of these issues. Many new processes are never commercialized because they are not economically attractive. Even economically attractive processes may be rejected if, for example, there are safety questions that cannot be satisfactorily resolved or environmental permits that cannot be obtained. In most cases, there are several physically feasible routes to a product, and comparisons of alternatives must be made.

A major facet of this course is to present opportunities for creative engineering work in a team setting. As such, the design problems, the interaction with the faculty, and the presentation and evaluation of the proposed design solutions are structured to be flexible and open to approaches conceived of and implemented by the teams. Since the course is structured to encourage flexible approaches to the design problem, requirements concerning structure, content and formatting of reports are kept to a minimum.

Course Objectives: CHE 451 is the capstone design course in the ABET accredited undergraduate curriculum and involves the application of all prior coursework to the design of chemical process systems. Integrating the knowledge and skills acquired in prior courses equips the student to better understand the conceptual, analytical, and decision aspects of open-ended design problems.

By the end of the course most students should be able to do the following:

· Summarize and present technical material in a way that is appropriate to the audience	· Develop a project management plan for the completion of each phase
· Work effectively in teams to solve technical problems	· Formulate strategies to address environmental regulations in the design of a process, where applicable
· Apply profitability analysis to a process	· Describe the end uses, competitive market analysis, and potential competitors for a product
· Define the ethical dimensions within engineering design

Course Grading Policy:

Status Report	Feb. 16	25 %
Mid-Semester Oral Presentation	Week of March 9	25 %
Final written report	April 20	30 %
Poster Session	April 27	10 %
Homework		5 %
Class Attendance		5 %
Total		100 %
Optional Extra Credit – Creative Assignment	April 22	Up to 3 points on final grade

You will receive instructions prior to each deliverable regarding the specific time and method by which it is due, depending on whether we have class on that day or not. Deliverables received after the due date and time will be penalized 20 points for each day late.

Team Policies and Responsibilities:

Since this is a project course, the bulk of your grade is based on deliverables that the team will produce. Your team will have a number of responsibilities as it completes these deliverables:

Designate roles within the team. This could include a project manager, editor, librarian (the person who keeps up with the literature), advisor liaison, etc.
Agree on a common meeting time and what each member should have done before the meeting by way of preparation.
Do the required individual preparation. Each team member should attempt to produce their assigned deliverables and written work.
Meet and review individual work. You will have to delegate the work – one or two people will not be able to do all the work required. Everyone will not know the details of all parts of the project, but everyone should be generally familiar with the individual parts and understand how their part affects others, and vice versa.
Review returned deliverables. Make sure everyone understands why points were lost and how to correct errors.
Track individual contribution. The editor will need to maintain electronic copies of documents submitted to them for editing and submit a CD with files for each person with the February and April deliverables. This will help if there is a dispute about a peer rating with regard to contribution.

Complete and submit on-line peer ratings for all team members when required. Ratings will be collected near midterm and near the end of the semester. They will be confidential, and will be used to adjust group product grades for every student.
Consult with the instructor if a conflict arises that can’t be worked through by the team.

Written reports are expected to be the product of team efforts. Each member of the team is expected to contribute equally to the development of the design contained in the written reports and oral presentations. Accordingly, each written report and oral presentation will receive a single grade. Because the design is a team effort, normally each team member will receive the same grade for each phase report. There is opportunity, however, for team members to identify individual members who have made an outstanding contribution or who have contributed in a less-than-equal manner, including non-participation, to the phase. This will be accomplished in two ways:

(1) The names on each phase report should reflect those of group members who contributed to the report. Students should sign the cover sheet for each phase to indicate their participation and contribution. If a group member fails to contribute or cooperate in the development of the report, his or her name should not be included. Group members who are not listed as contributing to a report or presentation will receive a grade of zero.

(2) Group members will complete a peer rating form three times during the semester (corresponding with major deliverables). Peer evaluations will be considered in assigning the final grade.

Omitting names from completed assignments, firing, and quitting

If a team member refuses to cooperate on an assignment, his/her name should not be included on the completed work. If the non-cooperation continues, the team should meet with the course instructor and attempt to resolve the problem. If no resolution is achieved, the cooperating team members may notify the uncooperative member in writing that he/she is in danger of being fired, sending a copy of the memo to the course instructor. If there is no subsequent improvement, they should notify the individual in writing (copy to their instructor) that he/she is no longer part of the team.
Similarly, a student who is consistently doing most of the work on a team may issue a warning memo (copy to instructor) that he/she will quit unless more cooperation is forthcoming. The team should meet with the course instructor at this point so that the problem can be resolved, if possible. If the non-cooperation continues, the student doing the work may notify the others in writing (copy to instructor) that he/she is no longer part of the team.
Students who are fired or who quit must find another design team unanimously willing to accept them as a member, otherwise they get zeroes for the remaining assignments.

As you will find out, group work isn’t always easy: team members sometimes cannot prepare for or attend group sessions because of other responsibilities, and conflicts often result from differing skill levels and work ethics. When teams work and communicate well, however, the benefits more than compensate for the difficulties.

Attendance: 5% of your final grade is based on attendance. There are three reasons for this. First, you will soon enter the workplace where you will be expected to attend work every day, arrive on time, and stay the whole day! Now is as good a time as any to develop this habit if you don’t already have it. Second, several of the lectures for this course are given by invited guest speakers. These speakers will not be favorably impressed by our department or by our students if attendance is low and people straggle in late. Third, the material we cover in class will help you on your project/presentation/poster, and we don’t want to have to repeat it 10 times for people who chose to skip class.

Each student can have up to one unexcused absence for regular class lectures, and zero unexcused absences for guest lecturers. Attendance will typically be documented using a class or speaker evaluation form which must be turned in at each class. If you exceed the limit of unexcused absences for either regular lectures or guest lectures, you will receive a zero for attendance (i.e. it’s either 5 points or 0 points). In addition to documented illness, excused absences include interviews, plant trips, grad school visits, and authorized school functions; however, notification must be given via email to Dr. Bullard no later than the Friday before the excused absence for absences that you know about in advance. For legitimate illness or emergency related absences, please let Dr. Bullard know your situation by email or phone as soon as you can. If this privilege begins to be abused (e.g. multiple trips or interviews are scheduled on class days), then it will be withdrawn from that student.

In addition, students who come in late (after the speaker or instructor has started talking) will lose one point on their final grade, up to 5 points, unless you’ve notified Dr. Bullard in advance of an interview or other excused conflict. You should be in your seat and ready to start class at 9:35AM. Note, 5 points is the maximum you can lose on attendance points for both absences/late.

Academic integrity. Students should refer to the University policy on academic integrity found in the Code of Student Conduct (found in Appendix L of the Handbook for Advising and Teaching). Plagiarism, as defined in the Code of Student Conduct and more specifically in documents on the course web site, will not be tolerated and will punished to the greatest extent possible. All cases of academic misconduct will be submitted to the Office of Student Conduct.

Disabled students. Reasonable accommodations will be made for students with verifiable disabilities. In order to take advantage of available accommodations, students must register with Disability Services for Students at 1900 Student Health Center, Campus Box 7509, 515-7653. http://www.ncsu.edu/provost/offices/affirm_action/dss/ For more information on NC State’s policy on working with students with disabilities, please see the Academic Accommodations for Students with Disabilities Regulation.