Background

There are a variety of courses in a standard chemical engineering curriculum, ranging from the introductory material and energy balances course, and culminating with the capstone process design course. The focus of virtually all of these courses is on steady-state behavior; the rare exceptions include the analysis of batch reactors and batch distillation in the reaction engineering and equilibrium stage operations courses, respectively. A concern of a practicing process engineer, on the other hand, is how to best operate a process plant where everything seems to be changing. The process dynamics and control course is where students must gain an appreciation for the dynamic nature of chemical processes and develop strategies to operate these processes.