Category: Chemical Engineering

You Thought You Understood Compressors? Think Again. If you’re like most engineers, you learned isentropic efficiency in a thermodynamics class, did a few textbook problems, and moved on. But when you’re faced with real compressors, turbines, or expanders—and actual fluid property data—suddenly that simple concept feels a lot murkier. This post is a refresher on isentropic…

I received my basic training in forty-five months at the oldest continuously operating degree-granting chemical engineering program in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania (since 1893). I was interested in the fundamental science behind chemical engineering: I was obsessed withclassical and statistical thermodynamics and how materials work explained by quantum and electromagnetic theories.…