Unit Operations Experiments
Planned Experimental Capabilities
The renovated Unit Operations Laboratory will provide students with experience across several major areas of chemical engineering.
Fluid Flow and Pressure Drop
Students will investigate how liquids and gases move through pipes, valves, fittings, packed systems, and other process equipment. Experiments may examine:
- Flow-rate measurement.
- Pressure loss in pipes and fittings.
- Laminar and turbulent flow.
- Pump performance and system curves.
- Valve characteristics.
- Fluid transport through process networks.
- Comparison of measured results with engineering correlations.
These activities will reinforce concepts used in the design of pipelines, processing plants, water systems, bioprocesses, and energy facilities.
Heat and Mass Transfer
Experiments in heat and mass transfer will allow students to study the movement of thermal energy and chemical species within process systems. Planned capabilities may include:
- Heat-exchanger operation and performance.
- Conduction and convection measurements.
- Heating and cooling of process streams.
- Evaporation or condensation.
- Diffusion and interphase mass transfer.
- Humidification, drying, or related transport processes.
- Evaluation of heat- and mass-transfer coefficients.
Students will connect fundamental transport principles with equipment used throughout chemical, energy, food, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries.
Reaction and Separation Processes
Reaction and separation operations are central to converting raw materials into useful products. Laboratory systems may allow students to explore:
- Batch and continuous reactor operation.
- Reaction kinetics and residence-time effects.
- Distillation.
- Gas absorption or stripping.
- Liquid-liquid extraction.
- Filtration or membrane separations.
- Adsorption and other purification methods.
- Material and energy balances across integrated processes.
These experiments will help students understand how reaction conditions and downstream separations influence product quality, efficiency, safety, and cost.
Process Control and Instrumentation
Modern processing facilities depend on sensors, automated controls, and reliable process data. The renovated laboratory will introduce students to:
- Temperature, pressure, level, and flow sensors.
- Signal conditioning and instrument calibration.
- Feedback and feedforward control.
- Proportional-integral-derivative control.
- Process dynamics and transient response.
- Data acquisition and process visualization.
- Automated valves, pumps, and other control elements.
- Evaluation of process stability and control performance.
Students will gain experience operating systems in which physical equipment, instrumentation, software, and engineering judgment work together.
[Photograph or screenshot: Process-control interface and instrumentation]