"Covers global and domestic competition, marketing strategies, operating expenses, and environmental and safety regulations for chemical professionals at all levels. Contains up-to-date mergers and acquisitions of chemical companies."

Economic evaluation is necessary in deciding whether to pursue proposed business ventures. No business is too small to ignore economic evaluation, none too large to override it. This book describes how economic evaluations are performed in the chemical processing industries and illustrates them by appropriate examples. It stresses methods actually employed in real situations and suggests how results can be interpreted. To the extent possible the authors use common business language rather than specialized terms in order that new concepts will be more readily understood by those encountering the subject for the first time.

The first guide to compile current research and frontline developments in the science of process intensification (PI), Re-Engineering the Chemical Processing Plant illustrates the design, integration, and application of PI principles and structures for the development and optimization of chemical and industrial plants. This volume updates professionals on emerging PI equipment and methodologies to promote technological advances and operational efficacy in chemical, biochemical, and engineering environments and presents clear examples illustrating the implementation and application of specific process-intensifying equipment and methods in various commercial arenas.

The field of "On-Line Fault Detection and Supervision in the Chemical Process Industries" is relatively young. Major activity in this area has taken place only in the last fifteen years. The goals of the first workshop in Delaware were to discuss various methodologies necessary for solving industrial problems in fault diagnosis/supervision and to encourage interactions between academia and industry. This workshop also focused on development and evaluation of methodologies for on-line fault detection and supervision in the chemical process industries. It addressed theory, application, validation, performance and evaluation of methodologies such as parameter estimation, observers, parity equations, signal analysis methods, classification, rule-based systems with probabilistic approaches, fuzzy logic and neural networks. There are several trends that make the topic of this workshop especially relevant in today's world. The first is the tremendous advances made in automation and information technology that can potentially bring in an ever-increasing amount of information on to computer screens in the operating room of a plant. Avoiding problems of information overload and converting plant data to "on-line useful knowledge" is a key challenge. In some respects, one can draw parallels here to biological evolution where, over billions of years, human beings have evolved "mental models" to interpret the huge amount of information received through their senses. In the absence of the time advantage that evolution has had, we have to rely on methodologies such as those presented in this workshop to provide assistance to operators and engineers in interpreting plant information. A second trend that makes this field relevant in today's world is the increasing emphasis on environment and safety. Community activism and accidents such as those in Bhopal, India have caused media spotlights to be turned on the smallest of toxic releases or loss of life due to chemical accidents. The negative publicity generated by such events as well as the need to maintain the image of an environmentally conscious company make industry more sensitive to the issues of early detection of faults. The third trend that makes this field very relevant is that of the globalization of the world economy. Increasing globalization of the chemical process industry puts pressure on economic competitiveness and higher productivity. This implies reduced down-time due to faults, quick and flexible response of production to supply and demand changes, increasing reliance on automation and reduced personnel.

This proceedings contains papers from the IFAC Symposium on On-line Fault Detection and Supervision in the Chemical Process Industries (CHEMFAS-4), held in Jejudo Island, Korea, 7-8 June 2001. The proceedings includes theoretical contributions, as well as a wide range of industrial applications in process fault diagnosis, monitoring, and advanced supervision. The papers are organized around the following themes: fault detection and diagnosis, statistical and trend analysis, methodologies, sensor location and data reconciliation and applications. The driving forces for on-line fault detection and improved supervision of process operation include human safety, environmental safeguards, and equipment protection, as well as economic considerations such as the improvement of product quality, increased production, and so on. These diverse incentives, together with the development and evaluation of novel methodologies for on-line process supervision and management, form the focus of the symposium and of the papers in this Proceedings. Altogether over 60 papers are presented, covering strategies including model-based and data-driven approaches, as well as knowledge-based systems, statistical techniques, and AI-based pattern recognition techniques. All the work presented is at the cutting edge of research in this dynamic field.

This expanded version of an early book contains the latest information on hazard evaluation reflecting OSHA and EPA's newest regulations. Provides comprehensive coverage of equipment, operating procedures and a basis for recommending worker exposure control. Presents new technology developed to manage toxic hazards to human health in closed chemical process plants. Features an in-depth treatment of the engineering practice.

"The purpose of this study is to determine the degree to which the architectural, engineering, and construction (AE & C) industry and potential owner-operators have, or can obtain, the human and organizational resources to support rapid development of a commercial synfuels program. The study focuses on (1) the initial or "first-round" capability to design and build simultaneously numerous plants of commercial size; (2) the "second-round" capability of the industry, drawing from first-round experience; (3) the ways in which capabilities could be expanded; (4) the rapidity with which capabilities built up from experience with early commercial synfuels plants would atrophy if a pause were to occur in the construction of follow-on synfuels plants; and (5) the speed with which these capabilities would be recovered if, after a delay, additional plants were built.--Rand abstracts

Vols. 8-10 of the 1965-1984 master cumulation constitute a title index.