There are lots of ways to solve unit conversion problems, but I thought I would share my favourite little program. Convert for windows. It’s simple, it’s free, it’s a tiny little tool, it has a good range of unit types covered. It’ll take you 1 minute to try it.
Another good option online, when you have a really involved conversion problem, is Wolfram Alpha. I just did a search on “32 lb/ft3 in kg/m3” and it solved it in one step. Nice.
Crane Technical Paper No. 410 Flow of Fluids Through Valves, Fittings, and Pipe
So, I thought I would mention that they are publishing a big new revision of TP410. The US units version in November, and the metric version soon after.
TRIZ is a brainstorming method specifically designed to tackle engineering problems. The insight of TRIZ is that any design involves trade-offs or technical contradictions between two or more opposing features. But innovative solutions will apply one of the 40 TRIZ principles to avoid these trade-offs, and deliver a higher level of performance.
The story behind TRIZ is that Russian inventor Genrich Altshuller hit on the idea through a deep study of patents and inventions. Patents are legal applications that you file when you have a novel invention, to give yourself sole rights to use that invention for a period of time. By studying patents, the story goes that the same sort of innovations kept cropping up again and again in many different fields. Even though different problems had different solutions, these solutions shared a few key principles. In this post, I will give you a quick introduction to applying the 40 principles to your problems.
Let me share my three favourite, relevant web-blogs with you. If you’ve found any of my articles interesting, be sure and check these out. (But not before bookmarking me first! :)) I am recommending them because they’re really worth your time. Two are chemical engineering blogs, and one is of interest to a wider audience.
Chemical Process Technology – I think this has to go in anyone’s top list of chemical engineering websites. There are a lot of good articles, links, and things on offer, especially in safety and relief analysis. The blog also links to sister sites on heat exchangers, oil and gas, and general technology that are less frequently updated.
Chemical Professionals – A long-running blog that I’ve just started following, I have a feeling there are great things to find in here.
Timothy Ferriss Lifestyle Design Blog – Tim wrote The Four Hour Workweek, an eye-opening look at how a person can cut the clutter and time-waste from their life, become an entrepreneur, put troublesome tasks on autopilot, and learn to take “mini-retirements” around the world on the cheap. He also has an incredibly novel look at the areas of Internet entrepreneurship, fitness, language, and travel. He brings all these together in a blog that’s too interesting for you to pass up.
Edit 2009-09-14: Allow me to sneak in another great blog I was just sent! Chemical Engineering for Life, a blog by a chemical engineering student that seems rich in resources for checking into new topics. Take for example this post on Useful Wikipedia articles for Chemical Engineers.
Checklists are a good way to avoid making mistakes in any activity. Lets apply them to Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) in today’s post. This checklist will help a chemical engineer that has to develop brand new P&IDs, or check other’s work. (Click here for a Process Flow Diagram checklist).
P&IDs incorporate a lot of the knowledge in any design. They require a lot of data from many different sources and disciplines. And let’s face it, they are one of the few key documents that designers AND business people AND operators will refer to time and time again. You need them as accurate and well thought-out as possible.
As I have worked with them over the years, I built a checklist. Every mistake or near miss, I added to my list of things to look for.
You can take this list, alter it, and make your own checklist. Then, use the checklist each time a drawing passes over your table. Not every check I list below will apply to every drawing, obviously.
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