Estimated Equipment

The required man-hours for a specific calculation vary

with the process system, availability of physical data, and
the relative familiarity of the process design engineer.
Records collected over a period of years on a wide crosssection
of organic and inorganic process equipment calculations
are summarized in Table 1-9. It is impossible to
accurately define the limits of the calculations represented,
but on an average, they have been found to be helpful
in establishing the order of magnitude of the calculation
time, as well as the basis for approximating the over-all
extent of the process engineering of the project.
Electronic computers, both digital and analog, can be
used to great advantage in design studies and calculadons.
In evaluating reactor designs it is extremely helpful
to develop a family of performance curves for variables
involved in the system. Usually this
becomes too time consuming with the desk electronic
calculator, and is a good problem for the computer.
After investing time and talent into a program for the
computer, it is usually only a matter of minutes or hours
before a complete series of results can be calculated.