How to prepare for Plant Design and Operation Section of the Exam

Hi,

I am taking the PE exam in April 2015. What is the best way to prepare for the plant design and operation section of the exam. I have CERM, but it seems that it does not have everything that will show up on the exam based on the chemical syllabus provided by NCEES. Any suggestion from previous test takers or current PE candidates?.

Your answer is appreciated.

Amreska

This is kind of late but I printed out bunch of articles from CEP through AIChE website ..I used search words like "101" (to find basics) "best way to" operations etc , safety PpE ...I didn't read all of them I skimmed through them but I marked them as article 1 ,2 etc and made a corresponding index in the binder with article titles and numbers

This was my only way to cover for experience based questions ...this is a long short in the dark for experience based questions but I was bored at work and didn't have study material on me.

Okay so it help a little

I had just mentioned this in another post.

If I was doing this again, I'd spend more time going through the appendices through Perrys and tabbing design data. Everything from material properties to designs of HXs and valves. It's just a handy way to get access to info quickly. It's really just a pain to have to look everything up, even if you know what you're looking for.

OffShawz said:

I had just mentioned this in another post.

If I was doing this again, I'd spend more time going through the appendices through Perrys and tabbing design data. Everything from material properties to designs of HXs and valves. It's just a handy way to get access to info quickly. It's really just a pain to have to look everything up, even if you know what you're looking for.

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Agreed, especially on material properties and equipment design. OffShawz, sounds like you and I have a lot of parallels in our prep/testing efforts.

I failed! Didn't do at all well in plant design and operations ..rest of the sections seemed More or less I got them ...I could improve on some but plant design and operation was just out the window completely

What type of work do you do? Are you in a plant environment at all?

Process engineer ..1.5 years of experience

It may just take more time and experience. If you have an opportunity to do some design/development work I'd take it. The exam is not only principles, but practice, so they'll throw stuff at you that you have to answer based on your engineering judgment alone, unless you have lots of time to search references. And, even then it's a crapshoot as to whether or not you'll find the needed information.

I'd be glad to help on any sticking points when you start studying again. I'm sure you'll pass next time.

adamn185 said:

It may just take more time and experience. If you have an opportunity to do some design/development work I'd take it. The exam is not only principles, but practice, so they'll throw stuff at you that you have to answer based on your engineering judgment alone, unless you have lots of time to search references. And, even then it's a crapshoot as to whether or not you'll find the needed information.

I'd be glad to help on any sticking points when you start studying again. I'm sure you'll pass next time.

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This.

During our review course, a Process Engineeering Manager and I who have 15 and 10 years respectively were banging out answers left right and center to the plant design topic presentations. Abbreviations galore, tons of general Operations and Plant questions, and our fair share of "The One Time at Band Camp..." stories relating to operations and design aka "you cant design for stupid" when we were reviewing this outside of class. He deals with Texans, I deal with Cajuns, so it's a toss up.

In previous topics however, the young engineers were all over fugacity, Raoult's Law, and Dry Bulb v Wet Bulb, while I was still trying to figure out how to draw those lines on the tray sizing and trying to re-remember VLE curves.

Even then, it's not a cakewalk. This past exam was full of plant design questions on...Distillation. I have NO CLUE about that as I do upstream work, but I could get a bit of a handle on it. A simple question on packing materials would have been really easy for the refinery kids, meanwhile I had to check and make sure that "M&Ms" were not an acceptable material to use in a stripping column.

While I'm positive you cant study for it, you CAN make you life a lot easier by tabbing properly. The above-referenced manager and I are going to try to help out that AIChE class we did (the teachers are all volunteers) and "pay it forward" with "Useful Tabs to have in Perrys, and why they will help" topics.

Yeah I was able to answer one question from Perry's...I just can't decide if I should wait and take it or just take it in October ? I have 70% ,80% , 67% in some categories ...I wonder if I could improve in those categories more and just retest this oct? Or wait?

Cheme2013 said:

Yeah I was able to answer one question from Perry's...I just can't decide if I should wait and take it or just take it in October ? I have 70% ,80% , 67% in some categories ...I wonder if I could improve in those categories more and just retest this oct? Or wait?

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I'd keep at it right away. The longer you kick the can on it the longer it's going to take to get back on the saddle. The percentages you reference above show you have a handle on some of it, so it's not a total loss. I'd just be cognizant of giving yourself as much time as you can on the design problems, and that might either mean better-organized references that are pre-tabbed, or an entire set of design reference materials that you do not touch until those problems come up in the exam (b/c honestly after a couple of reference guides, the rest is typically overkill).

This is difficult to prepare for... Perry's is probably your best bet.