Textbook Goals

The major goal of this textbook is to teach students to analyze dynamic chemical processes and develop automatic control strategies to operate them safely and economically. My experience is that students learn best with immediate simulation-based reinforcement of basic concepts. Rather than simply present theory topics and develop analytical solutions, this textbook uses "interactive learning" through computer-based simulation exercises (modules). The popular MATLAB software package, including the SIMULINK block-diagram simulation environment, is used. Students, instructors, and practicing process engineers learning new model-based techniques can all benefit from the "feedback" provided by simulation studies.^[1]

^[1] It should be noted that I am not a proponent of a solely "simulation-based" control education, where students iteratively adjust parameters in a JavaScript simulation until acceptable responses are obtained. I wish for students to obtain the classic mode of understanding as analyzed so well by Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Bantam Books, 1974). This deeper understanding of process control can be obtained by rigorous analysis and by selected simulations where the student plays a direct role in the implementation of an algorithm or strategy of choice.

Depending on the goals of the instructor and the background of the students, roughly one chapter (± 0.5) and one module can be covered each week. Still, it is probably too ambitious to cover the entire text during a typical 15-week semester, so I recommend that instructors carefully choose the topics that best meet their personal objectives. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, we teach the one-semester, 4-credit course in a studio-based format, with students attending two 2-hour sessions and one 2-hour recitation (which also provides plenty of "catch-up" time) each week. During these sessions we typically spend 45 minutes discussing a topic, then have the students spend the remaining hour performing analysis and computer simulation exercises, working in pairs. During the discussion periods the students face the instructor station at the front of the room, and during the simulation periods they swivel in their chairs to the workstations on the countertops behind them. This textbook can also be used in a more traditional lecture-based course, with students working on the modules and solving homework problems on their own.