Mathematical Methods in Chemical Engineering PDF

PREFACE

Over the years, and especially since the 1960s, significant developments have occurred in chemical engineering through the applications of mathematics. These developments were supported by the available text and specialized books dealing with topics in applied mathematics, and some of these were written by, and for, chemical engineers.

Most chemical engineering departments offer a senior-graduate level course in mathematical methods. A variety of topics are covered in these courses. For some time, there has been need for a textbook which provides a mathematical background at a somewhat advanced level, along with applications to chemical engineering problems. The present book is an attempt in this direction.

We have included a relatively broad selection of mathematical topics in this book that we believe are essential for a modem chemical engineer to know, especially at the graduate level. With successful mastery of this material, students can more confidently undertake mathematical analysis in research and can better cope with other graduate level courses. In making these selections, however, we have had to delete a number of topics to limit the size of the book. Topics deleted include complex analysis, statistics, and numerical methods. Fortunately, for each of these topics good books are available in the market, and for numerical methods in particular there are several books available written specifically for chemical engineers. These sources can be used to supplement one's mathematical training.

This book can be used for either a one or two-semester course. In a two-semester course, the entire book can be covered comfortably. For a one-semester course, the instructor can choose the topics to be covered, since the individual chapters are essentially independent. Portions of the book have been used successfully as text by the authors at the University of Notre Dame, Politecnico di Milano and ETH-Ztirich. In addition to chemical engineers, students from other engineering departments have frequently taken these courses. Professors William B. Russel of Princeton University and Gianni Astarita of the Universities of Naples and Delaware have also used portions of this book for their courses, and offered valued suggestions for improvements.

It is our pleasure to acknowledge here some debts of gratitude. To many readers, our enormous debt to Professor Neal R. Amundson of the University of Houston will become clear immediately. Several chapters bear an imprint of material offered in his course at the University of Minnesota, where one of us (AV) first learned about the beauty and power of mathematics applied to chemical engineering problems. Chapter 1 is essentially a summary of his book Mathematical Methods in Chemical Engineering:Matrices and their Application, Prentice-Hall (1966). Indeed, we had hoped earlier that he would co-author the present book, but this was unfortunately not possible owing to his other commitments. We are also grateful to Professor Rutherford Aris of the University of Minnesota for his encouragement during the course of this writing.

The typing of the manuscript was largely the work of Mrs. Jeanne Davids, Mrs. Linda Phillips and Mrs. Sherry DePoy, although some early drafts were prepared by Mrs. Helen Deranek and Mrs. Miriam Oggioni. The illustrations were prepared by Mrs. Joanne Birdsell and Mrs. Ruth Quinn. To them, and to many students who took our courses and who helped with calculations behind some of the figures as well as galley proofs, we are grateful.