Chemical Engineering License Review

by Rajaram K. Prabhudesai and Dilip K. Das

Book Overview

BL 146 example problems with detailed step-by-step solutions
BL Covers all topics featured on the exam
BL Easy-to-use tables, charts, and formulas
BL An ideal desk companion to Perry's Chemical Engineer's Handbook (McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing, 1997)
BL Complete references and an index

Chemical Engineering License Review, 2/e, brings together all elements of professional problem solving in one volume. It is an ideal...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1576450368
• ISBN13: 9781576450369
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 574 Pages
• Weight: 2.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 10.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book for chemical engineering PE license review

The 2007 edition of the book is thoroughly revised and includes information not only for the PE examination, but also for doing everyday process engineering calculations. I strongly recommend anyone engaged in process engineering or preparing for P.E. examination to buy this book along with the companion book on Problems and Solutions. This book, comprising twenty chapters, has nearly 800 pages: a voluminous book. The chapters include Units and Dimensions (22 pages), Material Balances (54 pages), Energy Balance and Thermodynamics (53 pages), Fluid Mechanics(78 pages), Heat Transfer(69 pages), Evaporation(14 pages), Filtration (16 pages), Membrane Separation(9 pages), Mass Transfer Fundamentals(52 pages), Distillation(64 pages), Absorption(25 pages), Liquid-Liquid Extraction and Leaching(33 pages), Adsorption(18 pages), Psychrometry, Humidification, and Drying(23 pages), Chemical Reaction Engineering(78 pages), Process Control(25 pages), Corrosion and Materials of Construction(16 pages), Equipment Design(40 Pages), Engineering Economics(24 pages), and Plant Safety and Environmental Consideration(59 pages), Index(16 pages). Each chapter has numerous example problems to illustrate the application. The Introduction of the book, not mentioned above, gives information about how to become a professional engineer, examination structure, the website and telephone number of various State Authorities, and practical hints like what to take to examinations. Chapter 1 discusses the various units including the US Customary unit and SI, and the conversion factors. Chapter 2 starts with material properties, discusses mass balances, phase behavior, ideal and real gases, fuels and combustion. Chapter 3 deals with thermodynamic properties, three laws of thermodynamics, thermo-chemistry, power cycles and refrigeration. Chapter 4 deals with Fluid Mechanics. This is a very strong chapter not only for P.E. examination, but also for regular process design. It deals with fluid mechanics application including parallel and branched systems, compressible fluid, and two-phase flow, the 3-K method of calculating fluid flow resistance, and pump hydraulics. The line-sizing guideline table 4.2 is very handy and demonstrates practical wisdom of the authors. The chapter 5 on heat transfer is another very good chapter. All modes of heat transfer including conduction, convection, and radiation, and unit operations of sublimation, batch heat exchanger design, nonmetallic heat exchangers, extended surface heat exchanger, and effectiveness NTU method have been covered. Chapters 6 and 7 cover both fundamentals and applications through worked out problems in evaporator and filter design. Chapter 8 covers the unit operation of reverse osmosis. The mathematical model for batch reverse osmosis is quite handy. Chapter 9 shows an elaborate treatment of mass transfer fundamentals including molecular diffusion, convective and turbulent mass transfer, inter-phase mass transfer, VLE, and ma

Very effective study aide.

This is an excellent study guide with practical examples. I bought this book and its companion texts. It covers most fo the chemical engineering topics for the exam. The latest edition (2007) has very few errors. The errors are posted on publisher's website as they are discovered. The reader should ignore any review done on earlier editions.

A great study guide

This is an excellent book for refreshing core concepts in chemical engineering, particularly if you've been out of school for a long while. It's also loaded with solved example problems to give the reader practice solving problems with speed. Although not necessarily recommended, one can actually get by on the numerous example problems in this book alone without having to buy separate books on practice problems. What this books lacks is reference information in the form of tables and charts, etc. It is also skimpy on the many minor topics that invariably get asked on the exam but that are too minor and too numerous for a student to spend much time preparing for. I also wish it were hardbound because the soft cover gets beat up very quickly. For reference information for use during the exam, choose Lindeburg's Chemical Engineering Reference Manual instead. The Das/Prabhudesai and Lindeburg books complement each other perfectly, one mostly for use to get ready for the exam, the other for use during the exam. Lindeburg's book isn't particularly good as an exam prep study guide, but the Das/Prabhudesai books is. My advice for anyone preparing for the chemical PE is to get both books. I passed the Chem E PE on my first attempt this way. The Lindeburg is indispensible as a handy reference during the exam. Read my review on it, too. Yes, you'll have to shell out the money for both sets of books, but doing so is still far cheaper than having to take the exam twice! Use both books to pass the exam. One thing to keep in mind about the PE exam is that it tests for acceptable competence instead of excellence (This generally means answering at least 70% of the questions correctly). One doesn't need to have been an A-caliber student in college to pass it. The passing rate for first-time takers has been over 70% in recent years. The combined pass rate is around 50% because it's dragged down by repeat takers who have only a 40% pass rate.

A Book for Chemical Engineers by Chemical Engineers

I took Chemical Engineering PE exam in April 2007 for the first time. I passed the exam. When I was solving the problems in the actual exam I knew what I was doing. I was confident that I will pass. The main reason was Chemical Engineering License Review. License review is written by chemical engineers. This book brushed up my chemical engineering knowledge. Review has addressed all areas in PE exam. But the best covered area is Chemical Reaction Engineering. There are lot of questions on reaction engineering (11%). Problem with kinetics is that we do not use it everyday like fluid dynamics or heat transfer. This book will bring you up to the speed for kinetics problems. Kinetics is the area which will make it or break it. Review was great help in plant design and operation section. I found this section very useful during actual examination. Heat transfer chapter has good review of shell and tube exchangers. Fluid dynamics chapter helped me in flow of fluids in pipes and pump calcs most. License review gives extensive coverage for mass transfer. Absorption and distillation are very important sections and this book prepared me well to solve those questions. Book had printing mistakes but these mistakes did not deter me from understanding the principles. There are other reference books/solved problems (Chemical Engineering Reference Manual, NCEES problems) available and they are useful too. While studying I kept this book as a main focus and used other reference material also. Study from more than one source is a must. If one starts early enough and balance fundamentals and problem solving properly then passing in the first attempt is not tough. PE exam tests experience and fundamentals. License Review will clear your fundamentals. It helped me during exam and I am going to keep it as a reference also. I did not have resort to option elimination. In most of the cases I got the answer and it matched with one of the option. Now I can say my answers were correct (atleast most of them!!!) because I passed the exam.