Design for Maintainability: The Innovation Process in Long Term Engineering Projects

Achieve Energy Savings in Plant Facilities John M. Gross, Plant Engineering and Maintenance (PEM) Magazine Whether it's turning off lights, idling back process equipment and fixing compressed air leaks to energy audits and installing compressed air management systems, reducing utility costs to achieve energy savings in plant facilities can take several forms. As with any project, the return on investment...

Eliminating Conveyor Concerns Flexible Steel Lacing Company Importance of Conveyors It's hard to imagine belt conveyors anywhere playing a more important role than at South Africa's Kendal Power Station. Here, the world's largest black-coal-fired electrical generating complex converts up to 1.4 million tons a month into more than 4100 megawatts, enough to supply three cities the size of nearby greater...

The Full Circle of Engineering Education Tom Irvine I express greetings to the readers of this newsletter. This article has several related themes. The main purpose is to give an overview of the engineering education process, relating theory to practical application. As part of this overview, I express gratitude to the scientists, mathematicians, and engineers who have guided my own...

Developing Marketable Engineering Skills Heinz P. Bloch For the foreseeable future, the “job of the future” will exist in a world that wrestles with issues of outsourcing, offshore design and manufacturing, and generally uncertain employment prospects. Among the job seekers, aspiring engineers need to develop effective ways of finding and keeping employment in this murky environment. Guidance is helpful as...

Preheater Points Out the Value of Cooling Off Andrew Sloley, Veeco At some time or another, nearly every engineer gets ensnarled in a difficult or complicated solution to a simple problem. The following story vividly illustrates this point...The lead process engineer for a refinery revamp wanted to brainstorm about how to control the reactor inlet temperature. The conceptual design relied...

The Cost of Producing Electricity Turbosteam Calculation of Steam Cycle Energy Balance Using a Backpressure Steam Turbine The cost per kWhr, the "cost of producing electricity", is the cost of the energy which is taken out of the steam by the turbine generator system and converted into electricity. The following paper discusses calculation methods for determining this cost -- a...