Instructions and Guidelines for Formatting the Chemical

Engineering Plant Design Report

The design report contains all of the information about the design project in
consideration. While informal reports may be useful for internal use of the design team
during the evolution of the design project, a formal report is required from the design
team at the completion of its design work.

The design report documents the details of the designed process, projecting its
profitability, and making recommendation to invest or not in the process. The report
identifies the key assumptions in the design and their potential impact on the
performance of the process and its anticipated profitability.

The design team should view its design report as an opportunity to showcase its most
creative engineering efforts for management (Seider et al., 1999).

Writing level: Technical writing must communicate information clearly, effectively and
succinctly. The language must not be excessive or complex and any company-specific
jargon must be defined. Stick to plain writing. Engineering writing is also fact-based, so
be sure to back up any assertions you make using credible sources.

Figures, tables and equations: Technical reports almost always have figures, tables and
equations. Use a profession style for captions, referencing figures and equations and for
equation placement and punctuation. The best way is to follow the format and style that
you find in one of your engineering textbooks. For example, pay close attention to the
caption format, how a figure is referenced in the body, how equation variables are
described and so on.

Senior chemical engineering students are required to submit electronic copies of their
design report. Your final design report must be reviewed and approved the defense
panel members before you submit it to the CHE 63 instructor. Printed and electronic
copies of your final design report will be required for submission to the CHE 63
instructor.

Before submitting your final design report to your CHE 63 instructor and defense panel
members, check to make sure you:

 Print your document on A4 paper, and it is printed on one side of the paper only.
 Number pages in the lower right corner;
 Have the title page signed by your CHE 63 instructor, defense panel members,
and CHE department chair;
 Spell check all pages;
 Make sure all pages are included and in correct order.

Paper copies of the design report must be clear, neat, and legible, and free of any
correction marks of any kind. Paper must be of good quality (standard printer paper).
Use 1 inch margins, 1.5 line spacing, blank line between paragraphs, and Arial font at 11
point. The main body has continuous page numbers (first page through references),
found in the bottom right-hand corner.

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Formatting your chemical engineering design report: Sequencing of Pages

Front Matter

Front matter is the “preliminary” parts of the design report, including the Title Page, Table of
Contents, Lists of Tables, and Figures, etc. Each of these pages is numbered using lower
case Roman numerals, (for example, i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, etc.), Each page is accounted for in the
running total, however, a number is not always visibly shown on all front matter pages. The
following is a list of typical front matter pages included in your plant design report.

 Title Page (counts as Roman numeral “i” – the page number does not appear on this
page)

A template is provided on page 4 of this document.

 Table of Contents (it should appear as Roman Numeral “ii,” “iii,” or “iv,” and it must be
included on the page)

The wording of the chapter titles and all subheadings should exactly follow the wording
within the body of the paper. Omit underlining in the Table of Contents. Period leaders
between headings and page numbers should be used. All page numbers must be
aligned to the right of the page. Set up Table of Contents using Word to ensure
alignment and proper page numbering. The Table of Contents should not list the content
on any pages preceding it (i.e., title page, acknowledgements).

 List of Tables (Roman numeral number must appear on page)

Following the Table of Contents, the wording of the List of Tables should follow the exact
formatting within the body of the paper. Omit underlining in the List of Tables.

Period leaders between headings and page numbers should be used.

 List of Figures (Roman numeral number must appear on page)

Following the List of Tables, the wording of the List of Figures should follow the exact
formatting within the body of the paper. Omit underlining in the List of Tables. Period
leaders between headings and page numbers should be used. The List of Tables and
List of Figures should be on separate pages.

 List of Appendices – optional (Roman numeral number must appear on page)

Following the List of Figures, the wording of the List of Appendices should follow the
exact formatting within the body of the paper. Omit underlining in the List of Appendices.
Period leaders between headings and page numbers should be used. A List of
Appendices is only appropriate when the document contains multiple appendices.

 Summary. The summary is probably the most important part of the report. (Peters and
Timmerhaus, 1991). Its purpose is to give the reader the entire contents of the report in
one or two pages. It covers all phases of the design project, but it does not go into details
on any particular phase. All statements must be concise and give a minimum of the
general qualitative information. The aim of the summary is to present precise quantitative
information and final conclusions with no unnecessary details.

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  Nomenclature. All symbols used in the report are listed together with their meaning and
units.

Body

The “body” of the design report is comprised of the various sections of text. Here the
pagination changes to the use of more familiar Arabic numerals (i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc.). Switch to
Arabic numbering, starting with page 1. Each page must be consecutively numbered. Do not
use letter suffixes such as 10a, 10b. The numbering begins with 1 and runs consecutively to
the last page of the paper. All page numbers should be at the right-hand margin at the foot
of the page.

I. The Introduction states clearly the need and objectives of the design project. It also
contains some or all of the following subsections:

I.1. The design problem

I.2. The design bases

I.2.1. A description of the product to be manufactured, the role of this product in

the industry, and its significance in national and international trade.
 Its uses
 Its form and quality, i.e. physical and chemical properties
 Possible substitutes existing in the market
 Market trends
o What are the national production, imports, and exports?
 i.e. What is the size of the market and the share
anticipated for your product in terms of volume?
o Are there government contracts or incentives?
o What is the estimated product longevity or future
consumption?
o What is the price structure?

I.2.2. A survey of the methods used in manufacturing this product (i.e. review of
related literature). Provide an explanation and description of the choice
of the production method being considered in this report, indicating
whether process is continuous or batch, giving the raw materials, the
principal chemical or physical transformations, by-products, wastes.

For each raw material, provide a description of:

 Its uses
 Its form and quality, i.e. physical and chemical properties
 Considering the physical and chemical properties, describe
storage and preprocessing needs
 Sources of supply and their locations
 Availability to markets, i.e. how much (quantities) is being
produced?
 Describe how you estimated the current and future availability
 Current and prospective costs

Also provide a similar description for alternative raw material(s).

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 I.2.3. Identify the choice of plant location. Provide an explanation of the
choice of the location, and a description of:
 Its distance from raw material sources and markets; include a
location map
 Its climate
 Its topography, i.e. elevation above sea level, observation and
recording of landscape features such as hill and mountain relief
(dramatic or modest), slope angles (shallow or steep), drainage
patterns (wetlands and rivers), and terrain characteristics (rugged
or smooth, vegetated or barren)
o Optional: Include a topographic map
 Availability of infrastructure (roads, transportation facility, power
supply, water supply)
 Availability, supply and price of utility services, i.e. electricity,
water, fuel (coal, diesel, LPG, biomass)

II. Process synthesis section presents the development of process flow.

II.1. An input/output (I/O) diagram showing the material streams entering and
exiting the process, including flow rates (or quantities).

Based on the I/O diagram, present and discuss profit margin

(Cost of raw materials - Sales of products

Sales of products
x 100 ) or excess value of products

Cost of raw materials - Sales of products

over raw materials ( x 100 ).
Cost of raw materials

On consideration of the profit margin (or excess value of products over raw
materials, provide an explanation of the choice of the production capacity.

II.2. Provide a description of the proposed production process and explain the
corresponding process flowsheet. Describe the function of each important
process and discusses the reasons for each particular choice.

1. In presenting the process flow diagram (PFD) of the process, use any
one of the (open-source) process simulators COCO and DWSIM, or
any one of AutoCAD, Microsoft Visio, draw.io, and The Engineering
Toolbox. All of the process units are labeled and all of the steams are
numbered. In addition, the drawing should contain a material balance
table, showing for each numbered stream the flow rate, the
composition, the temperature, the pressure, and any other important
properties, i.e. provide a summary of the process stream information.

2. Mass and energy balance calculations. Material and energy balance calculations
must be presented, so as to be able to check by any engineering supervisor. The
data used in calculations should be summarized, together with their sources. Details
on any computer software, if used, should be also presented.

Initially summarize your design bases and assumptions for the process design (you
may want to refer to Table 3-3, p. 99 of the book by Peters, Timmerhaus and West
2004).

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 Summarize calculations by presenting a quantitative block flow diagram, and
tabulations of heat and energy requirements for the process.

Next, present details of mass and energy balance calculations per process. For
example:

1. Process 1

1. Mass balance
Present assumptions and summary as well as the details of calculations
here.

2. Energy balance
Present assumptions and summary as well as the details of calculations
here.

2. Process 2

1. Mass balance
Present assumptions and summary as well as the details of calculations
here.

2. Energy balance
Present assumptions and summary as well as the details of calculations
here.

3. Equipment description, design and specification sheets. Every process unit in

the flowsheet is described in terms of the equipment’s specifications, the design
methodologies, the data employed, together with the sizing calculations, i.e. the
process mathematical model. The important approximations should be discussed, as
well as the resulting uncertainties. Specifications sheets are required to guide
purchasing agents in locating vendors of desired equipment, and to enable vendors
to prepare bids. These sheets provide the design specifications for each of the
process units in the process flowsheet.

4. Utility requirement. This section discusses the utility requirements of the process.
All the heating, cooling, and power demands should be identified, along with the
method of satisfying these demands, i.e. the description of the utilities system. A
summary of the required utilities is presented in a tabular form.

5. Environmental sustainability and socio-political considerations. This section

discusses the main issues to be considered in the operation of the proposed process.

1. Waste management. Potential environmental impacts of resource consumption,

industrial wastewater, gaseous emissions, and solid wastes need to be
identified. A range of onsite strategic, infrastructure and technological options
will be considered, alongside the use of offsite technology, to reduce these
impacts should be discussed. The results of the LCA analysis as well as the
EIA should be discussed while the report details are appended.
2. Ethical, health and safety. Provide a discussion on how potential ethical, health
and safety issues were addressed in the development of the process and
plant design. Identify the regulatory frameworks that have been considered
important and discuss how they were used as bases in the design process.
3. Socio-political issues. Discuss how previous and current social and political
issues were considered in the design process.

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6. Economic Analysis. This section provides a detailed discussion on the cost
considerations for establishing and operating the plant. Detailed computations and
discussions on the profitability as well as the sensitivity analyses are to be presented
as well.

1. Equipment cost and fixed capital investment (FCI). A table is prepared,

containing the estimated purchased cost of every equipment item in the
process flowsheet, identified according to the label on the flowsheet. The
sources of prices should be identified. The FCI is presented along with the
corresponding estimated method.

2. Production cost. The requirements in raw materials, utilities, labor and other are
summarized in table format and the corresponding cost is estimated. The
working capital could also be estimated in this section.

3. Profitability analysis. Based on the results of fixed-capital investment and the

operating cost estimation, several profitability measures are calculated, i.e.
the breakeven analysis, the payback period, the return on investment, the
net present value, and the discounted cash flow rate of return (DCFRR).
Present cash flow summary over the life of the manufacturing facility.

4. Sensitivity analysis. Uncertainty is a crucial characteristic of the design process.

It comes from the lack of technical information, or the fussy economic
environment. The design team expends considerable effort by locating data
in the literature or extracts them from experimentation, if possible. In any
case a sensitivity analysis is useful to reveal the effect of the most uncertain
magnitudes on the crucial technical and economical results of the design
process.

To better understand the impact various economic changes will have on

expected profits, conduct sensitivity analyses on (1) the market price of raw
material(s), (2) market price of the major product, (3) fixed costs, (4) variable
costs, and (5) total capital investment. Use the DCFRR (otherwise known as
the internal rate of return, IRR) as the profitability metric for these analyses.
Present graphs.

Additionally, conduct bivariate sensitivity analyses to determine which

coincident parameters (fixed costs vs. product price, variable costs vs.
product price, or total capital investment vs. product price) will show the
greatest risk for loss of profitability. Use the IRR as the profitability metric for
these analyses. Present summary tables.

7. Conclusion and recommendations. The principal conclusions of the design study

should be presented, together with the recommendations for management.

Back Matter

The “back matter” is the material following and supporting the main body or text of
your design report. Pagination for the back matter remains in sequence and style
with the body using Arabic numerals. Following are traditional components of the
back matter to be included in the design report:

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  References. All literature sources referred to in the report are presented. When
you are citing a particular document or piece of information from a website,
include both a reference list entry and an in-text citation. Use APA Style citation.
List all sources cited in the text of a paper, listed alphabetically by author’s
surname.

 Appendices. Alternatives to the process design and plant location which were
included in the preliminary reports are to be appended herein. The full report on
the Life Cycle Analysis and Environmental Impact Assessment also need to be
included here.

Proposed Plant Locations

Sinawal, General Barangay San Barangay Lutac,
Santos City Isidro, Talakag, Naga City, Cebu
Critical Success Factors Weight Bukidnon

Score Score Weighted Score Weighted

Weighted Score Score
Score
Proximity to the Raw 0.25 90 22.5 80 20.0 65 16.25
Materials
Land Cost 0.20 95 19.0 90 18.0 60 12.0
Water Supply 0.15 80 12.0 80 12.0 80 12.0
Energy Availability 0.15 80 12.0 80 12.0 80 12.0
Waste Disposal 0.15 85 12.75 90 13.5 75 11.25
Transportation Facilities 0.10 80 8.0 65 6.5 70 7.0
Total 1.00 86.25 82.0 70.5

Legend:

SP – Security Post
PL – Parking Lot
RMS – Raw Material Storage
W – Warehouse
PA – Production Area
QAL – Quality Assurance Laboratory
WS – Water Storage
WTF – Waste Treatment Facility
PH – Power House
L – Logistics
M – Maintenance
RA – Recreation Area
AA – Administration Area
Ca – Canteen
Cl – Clinic

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 <XU Logo> Sample Format

Chemical Engineering Plant Design Report

<Title of Design Project>

by

<Name of Student 1>, <Name of Student 2>, and <Name of Student 3>

A plant design report

submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering
College of Engineering
Xavier University
Corrales Avenue, Cagayan de Oro City
March 2019

Approved: Department of Chemical Engineering

Edwin Richard R. Ortiz < Name of First Panel Member >

Department Chair Defense Panel Member

< Name of Second Panel Member > <Name of Third Panel Member>
Defense Panel Member Defense Panel Member