Syllabus

The Course

Description

Laboratory projects in the areas of applied chemical research and unit operations are essential preparation for careers in chemical engineering. In this course, emphasis is placed on applications of engineering concepts and fundamental solutions to practical engineering and academic research problems. The course objectives are to provide the following to each student:

• A mechanism whereby students learn to identify, formulate, analyze, and solve a significant problem.
• A laboratory setting wherein students must assess and exercise process and chemical safety in multidisciplinary experimental projects.
• A project-oriented setting wherein students perform design and scale-up calculations.
• Rigorous training in technical communications, both oral and written.
• An environment which encourages students to work in teams and to improve communication.
• An experience which instills ethical responsibility in the analysis and interpretation of data.

Academic Integrity

We take academic integrity seriously and expect you to do so as well.  You are encouraged to communicate with other teams and within your own team but all assignments must be completed individually or within your team as appropriate. The minimum penalty for plagiarism and other forms of cheating is a 35 point penalty and referral to the Academic Integrity Office; see The Written Report for a description of what's considered plagiarism in this course.  Our responsibilities to maintain integrity of scholarship, yours as student and ours as instructors, have been outlined in the UCSD Policy on Integrity of Scholarship.

I also place a strong emphasis on professionalism. In my eyes, you've all completed the majority of your coursework, you've got all the major fundamentals in hand, and in about 20 weeks someone is going to pay you a significant sum of money to be an expert in chemical engineering. It's therefore imperative that you be prepared to function well on a team as a professional chemical engineer. Emphasizing professionalism will impact the course in various ways, each of which represent my high expectations of your conduct both as an individual, a team member, and a chemical engineer:

• I expect you to be safe in the lab.
• I expect you to treat me, the course staff, and especially your teammates with respect.
• I expect you to complete your assignments on time and with professional integrity.
• I expect you to understand and follow instructions whether they're provided verbally, in an e-mail, or on this website.

Logistics

Where and When We Meet

The course is divided into four sections, each with different lecture and lab periods as summarized in Table 1. Do not switch sections or teams! If your team misses a lab period please contact Dr. Drews.

Table 1. Lab and lecture periods for CENG 176B, Spring 2016. (*) LPCVD simulations are performed in EBU2 203.

Section ID	Lecture	Lab
A01	TuTh 12:30p-1:50p in CENTR 109	MW 10:00a-1:00p in EBU2 135(*)
A02	TuTh 12:30p-1:50p in CENTR 109	MW 2:00p-5:00p in EBU2 135(*)
B01	TuTh 5:00p-6:20p in CENTR 109	TuTh 10:00a-1:00p in EBU2 135(*)
B02	TuTh 5:00p-6:20p in CENTR 109	TuTh 2:00p-5:00p in EBU2 135(*)

Don't switch sections or teams! You're all on slightly different schedules and it's not a simple matter of switching out one team member for another.

Additional Logistical Information

• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Lab coats are required and can be purchased from the bookstore; we'll provide gloves, safety glasses, and chemical goggles. You must wear closed-toe shoes, long pants (or leggings that cover to the ankle), lab coats, and safety eyewear when in the lab. PPE violations will result in removal from the lab. There are no lab coats or shoes available in the lab for you to borrow.
• Teams: You've already been assigned to a team; don't switch teams! Discussion among lab teams is encouraged but all assignments must be completed individually or within your team as appropriate.
• Textbooks: None explicitly because the course content is based on previous courses on chemical engineering fundamentals, engineering handbooks, and literature material.
• Assignments: Pre-lab questions must be completed and turned in on the first day of the relevant experiment. There are no exams; instead, you'll submit three team reports per quarter and participate in your team's oral presentations for each. Additional assignments are included in Table 2 and will be discussed during lecture periods.

Table 2. Course assignments and their point values.

Assignment	176A (WI)	176B (SP)
Report 1	80	100
Report 2	90	100
Report 3	100	100
Peer Evals	10	25
HW 1	15	n/a
HW 2	15	n/a
Knowledge Surveys	15	n/a
Total	325	325

• Grading: Course grades are based primarily on three reports each scored out of a possible 100 points with 50 points of each report assigned to team performance and 50 points assigned to individual performance. Detailed descriptions of individual and team responsibilities will be provided during Week 1 lectures. Each report will be returned with a Written Report Rubric (download and open with Adobe Reader) and feedback from the evaluator. The letter grades for this course will be based on the average score of the assignments and follow a simple 100-90-80 format with 2 pts near the cutoff for +/- grades (see Table 3 below). If you happen to land exactly on a cutoff grade then you get the higher letter grade.

Table 3. Letter grade rubric.

Letter	Score
-A+	90:92:98:100
-B+	80:82:88:90
-C+	70:72:78:80
F	0:70

• Regrades and Curving: There is no curve for the course and there are no report regrades. However you are encouraged to contact whomever evaluated your report with questions or concerns, and it is up to the individual evaluators to decide if additional points are warranted. Also, if your final grade is within 1 pt of one of the cutoff grades above and your average Peer Evaluations are greater than 90% then you can contact Dr. Drews to discuss options for improving your grade.

People

Instructors

We've got six instructors this year! See Table 4 for more details. Dr. Drews (that's me!) handles all the organizational aspects of the course; please direct such questions to me. The other instructors will each handle various aspects of a particular experiment and will evaluate some of your oral presentations.

Please note that I'm the only one with set office hours: they're during all lab hours (please wait until 30 min after the lab has started) and located in the lab on most days (if I'm not there then I'm in my office). You should contact the other Instructors via e-mail if you'd like to meet with them.

Table 4. Instructors for CENG 176A, Winter 2017.

Instructor	Office	Email (@ucsd.edu)	Experiments
Dr. Aaron Drews	SME 241E	adrews	tbd
Dr. Zheng Chen	SME 242J	zhc199	tbd
Dr. Justin Opatkiewicz	SME 241G	jpopat	tbd
Dr. Sheng Xu	SME 343J	shengxu	tbd
Dr. Kesong Yang	SME 244H	kesong	tbd
Dr. Liangfang Zhang	SME 245C	zhang	tbd

Staff

We've got two development engineers to help keep the lab running smoothly! They're responsible for maintaining the equipment and troubleshooting if you need help on technical or equipment-related problems, but you're supposed to be the experts on theory by now so they're not going to help with theory (and certainly not with your reports!).

Table 5. Staff for CENG 176B, Spring 2016.

Name	Role	Email (@eng.ucsd.edu)
Sabine Faulhaber	Senior Dev.Eng.	sfaulhaber
Nicholas (Nick) Adame	Asst. Dev.Eng.	niadame

Teaching Assistants

Our TAs will also help you troubleshoot any equipment-related problems, as well as running some of the more expensive analysis procedures, but as with the Staff they're not supposed to help you with theoretical considerations or your reports. I'll say it again: you're the experts now!

Table 6. Teaching assistants for CENG 176B, Spring 2016.

Name	Section	Email (@ucsd.edu)
Yu (Louis) Fan	tbd	y2fan
Mrunal Seshadri	tbd	mseshadr
Akanksha Rawat	tbd	akrawat
Christina Aguila	tbd	coaguila
Jessica Mart	tbd	jimart
Yimu Chen	tbd	yic238
Xin Fu	tbd	xif034
tbd	tbd	tbd

Schedules

Daily Schedule

You can download the Daily Schedule here. It will tell you where you should be and when but you'll need the completed Rotation Schedule to figure out what experiment you're supposed to be doing. Note that each course section--A01, A02, B01, and B02--have been subdivided into two sub-sections, A for Teams 1-9 and B for Teams 10-17. Check the top rows of the Daily Schedule to ensure you're looking at the correct schedule.

You cannot show up during other lab periods to work on experiments because we've got a full room during all periods. If you (individually) miss a lab period then you need to work with your team to figure out what you missed and how you can continue to contribute to the report. If you (as a team) miss a lab period then you'll have to do the best you can on the other lab days to make up the deficit.

Your entire team must be present in the lecture room for the entire period on all days during which your team is giving a presentation. You do not need to show up in the lecture room on other presentation days but you're certainly encouraged to do so if you'd like to see what it's like and learn from other teams' mistakes.

Due Dates

Answers to your Pre-Lab questions are due on the first day of each new experiment. Turn in a paper copy of your answer sheets (being careful to follow the formatting requirements described in The Written Report) to the dropbox in EBU II 135 when you come to lab.

Your written reports are due in the appropriate TurnItIn dropbox on TritonEd at the beginning of the relevant presentation lecture period, and your oral presentation files are due to the appropriate TritonEd dropbox 3 hours before the beginning of the relevant lecture period. Oral reports must be submitted as PDF files to the appropriate dropbox 3 hours before the presentation; to enable quick transitions between presenters, we will load all presentations onto a single laptop (you do not need to bring your laptop to the presentations). Table 7 describes the specific times for each report file for each section as well as what you should do if you miss the due date (and the point penalty for doing so).

Table 7. Written and oral report due dates for CENG 176A, Winter 2017.

Assignment	Format	Dropbox	Due Date	Late submission procedure
Pre-Labs	Paper	EBU 135	Beginning of 1st day of new lab	Bring to lab and give to TA. 3 pt penalty if done within first hour; 6 pt penalty thereafter.
Written Reports	PDF	TurnItIn (via TritonEd)	Day of presentation at beginning of lecture	Submit to TurnItIn and notify Dr. Drews by e-mail. 6 pt team penalty if 1-15 min late; 10 pt team penalty every 30 min thereafter. 3 pt individual penalty for wrong dropbox.
Oral Presentation Files	PDF	TritonEd dropbox	3 hr before beginning of presentation	5 pt penalty. Bring presentation on your own laptop. 3 pt penalty for wrong dropbox.

For example, if you're Team 14 in Section B01 and you're wondering when the due dates are for your 2nd report, the Daily Schedule lists your presentation date as 28 Feb at 5:00 pm. Therefore, your oral report file (i.e., your presentation file) is due in the appropriate dropbox before 28 Feb at 2:00 pm and your written report file is due in the appropriate TurnItIn dropbox before 28 Feb at 5:00 pm.

Experiments

We have nine experiments, each assigned a letter. Eventually your rotation schedules will be coded according to Table 8.

Table 8. Experiments available in CENG 176A/B, 2017.

ID	Experiment	Reader
A	Continuous Rectification	tbd
B	Plate Heat Exchanger	tbd
C	Cooling Tower	tbd
D	Reverse Osmosis	tbd
E	LPCVD Simulation	tbd
F	PEM Fuel Cell	tbd
G	pH Control	tbd
H	Liposome Nanoparticles	tbd
I	UV Photocatalysis	tbd