CURTIN UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL
ENGINEERING

Process Plant Engineering 322

Test 1
Date: 28th August, 2014
Duration: 1 hr 30 min
Total marks: 100
Answer all questions

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Question 1 (20 marks)

a) Fill in the blanks for the following letters or symbols? (10 marks)
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iii.

iv.

v.

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b) Explain the code descriptions given in the following Table? (3 marks)

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c) Explain dezincification of brass (3 marks)

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d) Explain briefly the plan for studying the materials of construction for any process.
(4 marks)
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Question 2 (26 marks)

Based on the description given below for the semi-regenerative reforming (SRR) process, prepare a
block diagram covering all the units and conditions (wherever possible).
SRR units consist of three adiabatic fixed-bed reactors in series with intermediate heating. Early SRR
units (~1950) were operated at relatively high pressure (25-35 bar) in order to maximize the run time.
The development of improved catalysts that had a lower tendency for coke formation enabled
operation at lower pressure (15-20 bar), while maintaining the same catalyst life (typically 1 year).
The naphtha feed is preheated and sent to the first reactor. In this reactor the kinetically fastest
reactions occur. These are dehydrogenation reactions of napthenes to aromatics. To maintain high
reaction rates, the product gases are reheated before sending being sent to a second heater, etc. The
indicative temperatures in the reactors (from 1 to 3) are 720, 760 and 780 K respectively. The effluent
from the last reactor is cooled by heat exchange with the feed. Then hydrogen is separated from the
liquid product and partly recycled to the process. The net hydrogen production is used in other parts of
the refinery, for instance in the naphtha hydrotreater. The liquid product is fed to a stabilizer in which
the light hydrocarbons are separated from high-octane liquid reformate.

Question 3 (24 marks)

As a design engineer what is your brief rationale for selecting the materials for several of the following
cases? What is your final pick based on the design and material information provided in tabulated
forms? You may also use the following information provided in the materials selection chart.

Case 1: Large pottery kiln

Materials available for your pick:

1. Brick
2. Concrete
3. Woods
4. Solid elastomers and solid polymers
5. Polymer foam like ceramics

Case 2: A heat exchanger

Materials available for your pick:

1. Brasses
2. Phosphor bronzes
3. Aluminium-bronzes
4. Nickel-iron-aluminium-bronzes

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Case 3: Passive solar heating

Materials available for your pick including costs shown in bracket:

1. Brick ($1400/m3)
2. Stone ($1400/m3)
3. Concrete ($200/m3)
4. Glass ($10,000/m3)
5. Titanium ($200000/m3)

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Case 4: Short-term Isothermal containers

The design specification for the egg-shaped package containing the electronics (see above Figure)
requires that, when the temperature of the outer surface is changed by 30C, the temperature of the
inner surface should not change significantly for an hour. To keep the device small, the wall thickness is
limited to a thickness w of 20 mm. What is the best material for the package?

Materials available for your pick:

1. Elastomers (Butyl rubber, neoprene and isoprene are examples)
2. Commodity polymers: polyethylenes and polypropylenes
3. Polymer foams

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Question 4 (30 marks)

In the following figure, the temperature of stream is controlled by a control valve that receives a signal
from a temperature measuring element placed on the third plate of a distillation column. The details of
all the instrumentation are given in the figure, which adequately describes the essential process control
functions being performed for controlling the temperature. Describe the sequence of instrumentation to
explain the control methodologies separately covering the definition of all symbols in dashed loop
portions.

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