How to become an excellent engineering designer

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How to become an excellent engineering designer – Words from a designer who reposted this: Recently, I saw on forums that some users were confused about engineering design, and I would like to share my views based on my own experiences and understanding of this field. Process design actually covers many aspects and serves as the cornerstone of the entire engineering design. If you are a project manager, once you take on a project, you must be clear about things such as material balance, heat balance, and time balance. In particular, heat balance calculations (which also include the calculation of reaction heat) – it’s terrible if the reaction heat cannot be calculated ； Secondly, it is necessary to understand the control scheme – whether it is ratio control, cascade control, feedforward control, etc., and to be clear about this ； Furthermore, one needs to understand equipment, including equipment selection, materials, processing characteristics, as well as moving and stationary equipment ； You also need to understand civil engineering; a project manager who doesn’t know civil engineering is incompetent ； You also need to have some knowledge in high-voltage electricity. Heat calculation: It is now difficult to find information on the heat released in many reactions. So, most of it relies on estimation. Then how is estimation done? This requires a solid foundation in knowledge, as well as expertise in chemical thermodynamics and physical chemistry. You should at least know the Beson estimation method. Heat calculation is extremely important, as it relates to the design of reboilers, condensers, and reactors. There are also calculations related to phase equilibrium; some data is required for distillation calculations, especially for calculating relative volatility. Process calculation: Process calculation is essential in process design. This is when one’s true skills are put to the test; those who think that the development work done in the laboratory constitutes technology, and that engineering is nothing more than drawing diagrams, deserve my contempt. Engineering is technology, and it is very crucial technology. Current process calculations tend to use software such as Aspen and ProⅡ. I don’t know how to use these software programs; I mainly use Excel and calculators that can perform integrations. I’m currently learning Matlab. In process calculations, it is necessary to make reasonable use of certain estimates and experiences; these empirical values come from engineering practice and cannot be learned from books. For chemical processing equipment, you need to understand dynamic equipment, static equipment, and so on. Because the process is carried out through equipment. Choosing the right equipment is very important for the process. It is very important to choose the mechanical seal for rotating equipment, and it is crucial to decide on the type of mechanical seal to use; I believe equipment experts would agree with this. Civil engineering knowledge: Civil engineering is the foundation of all projects; as a project manager, it is necessary to complete the conceptual design for the civil aspects of the project. Because civil engineering is directly related to the layout of your equipment. Civil engineering is also important for the piping field, especially for certain standard-length pipes; sometimes, due to the failure to take a certain beam into account, it becomes necessary to revise the procurement plans for those pipes. The project manager should be aware of the upper and lower reinforcement in civil engineering, as well as the attempts related to C30. In chemical engineering civil construction, embedded iron is extremely important as it is useful for installation. In one project, I used nearly 1,000 pieces of embedded iron, but later I felt that it wasn’t enough. For high-voltage systems: The project manager needs to plan the basic layout of the high-voltage components (buses and small cables). It is necessary to know how large the distribution cabinet is and how much space is required for the distribution room. As an outstanding talent in the field of engineering, one must possess strong computational skills, a good sense of three-dimensional space and dimensions, as well as an overall perspective on layout design. If you are a beginner, you first need to have a solid foundation of knowledge; if not, you should acquire it as soon as possible ； Go to the site more often ； Visit other manufacturers more often ； Communicate more with peers ； The last point is to be diligent and learn more. There are no shortcuts to success; actually, I’m a beginner too.