Customer Reviews

A Working Guide to Process Equipment

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a licensed professional engineer and consultant in the Houston, TX area, I found this to be an excellent and useful book. It simplifies and demystifies fundamental chemical engineering principals and effectively illustrates how theory applies to understanding the root cause/s of real world plant operating problems.

The Lieberman's also do a fine job of making the book interesting to read through the use of non-process plant related anecdotes. These anecdotes help the reader understand the principals presented by drawing upon experiences and situations common to everyday life.

I highly recommend this book to engineers of all experience levels who work in the petroleum refining and chemical process industries.

I'm a summer intern in an oil refinery and few of my tasks were to rerate exchangers, fin fan coolers, etc., and I didn't have any experience whatsoever! They don't teach at school how this equipment works in a process context and if you don't have a clue on what you're doing, this is the best book to refer to. It is very elementary, but at the same time, it can be very specific. It goes through fundamental steps for troubleshooting general processes as well as clear explanations of how most of the equipment in the industry work. Highly recommended at any level!

Boringless, easy to understand and real practical book. Reading this book I have troubleshoot many process problems effectively.

I strongly recommend this fantastic practical book for all levels.

arvind bhagat.

The unique style of the author explaining basic concepts with everyday problem expamples is what makes this book very absorbing and useful.

I was refered to this book after reading a few chapters of his "Troubleshooting Process Operations" book, and it is excellent. He writes it for people working in the industry, for people who might work in the industry, and people who just want to know how things work.

His sense of humor is on par with mine, as well as many of my fellow chemical engineers... so if you've spent any time working or dealing with engineers at all, his way of thinking and sense of humor will be well received.

Anyways, his examples are pretty much all personal experience, and he does a good job of giving you the "basic" math governing many processes. His intent is not to give design equations, and he is VERY careful to make sure the reader is aware that they are NOT to be used to design equipment.

He speaks, in my opinion, from a contractors point of view and is at times very critical of operating companies, management, other engineers, and SOME operators (he also rightfully gives MUCH praise to experienced veteran operators), so, if you work for an operating company, you might be a TAD offended, but, you'll live.

Buy the book, well worth it.

I am working with process optimization and most of my work is in front of a computer, dealing with mathematical model and process simulation. This book has been of an incredible help to gain practical knowledge: easy to read, easy to understand. This book is a "MUST" for those engineers who needs more practical knowledge on process operations! Highly recommended!

There is a good reason this book has been updated into a third edition. It is a great book; well written, easy to read, and a logical flow. Norman Lieberman has a habit of writing with a sort of folksy everyman approach to subjects that could be rather dry otherwise. He and Elizabeth have done an outstanding job on this book and I honestly treated it as fun reading with two or three chapters a night until time to turn off the light.

His troubleshooting episodes are like detective stories. It makes me wish I had been a process engineer so I could have had the fun of working with Elizabeth and him.

Very direct simulation , learning approach for the introduction of all most all problems in distillation for fresh process engineers.

Thanks Lieberman's.

I would not waste your money on this book. It is very overpriced for the type of content. This is basically a dumbed-down repetition of information that is already in most popular engineering texts. I wouldn't pay more than $10 for this. I actually bought a version in the 90's for about $10. I don't know why the price has increased so much. It should not be priced the same as accepted standard engineering texts.

If you are doing design work, there is not much you can use from this book because all the information is very qualitative. There is a chapter about sizing nozzles and that information could have been condensed into 1 page. There is a lot of 'fluff' written around the actual engineering information presented.

I'm not saying the book is bad by any means, but it does not have enough 'meat' to command the prices shown here >$70.