Bridging the gap between academia and industry Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Unit Operations laboratory

This paper describes the deployment of an industrial process automation system (PAS), in the chemical engineering unit operations (UO) laboratory at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and its incorporation in the undergraduate curriculum. The UO laboratory has over a dozen of pilot-scale process units (skids) and creates an environment very similar to a typical chemical, petrochemical or pharmaceutical plant. Students learn how to maintain their process under control, take it safely from one operating condition to another, collect and analyze data using a process historian, respond to process alarms and remotely troubleshoot their experiments with limited process information.