Tragedy in Farewell to Arms

confused with the use of computers to prepare engineering drawings via

draughting packages, this is sometimes referred to as computer-aided

design and draughting (CADD). For the chemical engineer engaged in a

design project assignment, computers and CAD now have several

common applications. These include the preparation of flowsheets and

the P & ID, calculation of the mass and energy balances for the overall

process and individual units, costing and economic analysis, the

optimization of process schemes, and the detailed design of individual

chemical engineering equipment, e.g. heat exchangers, distillation

columns, etc. Although there is no generally accepted standard

terminology, the detailed design of major units is best described as CAD,

whereas the other computer-based operations listed above can be

referred to as computer-aided process engineering (CAPE) or simply .

computer-aided engineering (CAE).

It is now expected that all graduating chemical engineers will have had

at least some basic experience of CAD in their course, and in many cases

the students will have had extensive hands-on training with a variety of

CAD programs and packages. This experience will vary depending upon

the university, the funding and resources available, and the department

philosophy to the teaching of design. A book of this type cannot devote

more than a few pages to this subject, and even then presenting only an

overview of the use of computers for design. This discussion must be

limited to a general description of the types of CAD packages available,

their usefulness and what the student can realistically expect to achieve.

Specific details of particular packages are omitted because of the wide

range of CAD materials now available and the variation between

departments in terms of what is available for student use. However,

some of the more-widely used packages are mentioned.

At this stage it is worth considering briefly what experience