A Design-Oriented Process Control Core Course Is Needed to Prepare Students for Chemical Engineering Practice

Abstract

Most core process control courses teach skills little used in industrial practice.  In contrast, learning how process objectives translate to control objectives in the form of continuous feedback controls, continuous and discrete logic, and sequential logic for batch operations is more relevant to practicing chemical engineers. These design and communication skills can be taught through a revised curriculum focused on synthetic exercises at the level of detailed design.  This promises to fill a gap in current chemical engineering graduates’ competency.