Final exam - 2013

Class date(s):

06 December 2012

The exam will be comprehensive. It will cover all topics in the course, with emphasis on the topics covered most intensively during the course, economics, safety, operability and troubleshooting.

Please bring to the exam:

• A list of the basic CRA classes for depreciation (see the section on 21 September)
• Inflation factors for the process industries, and be sure to understand when to use which particular index.

Answering questions in the final exam

The top paragraph of the exam contains these instructions:

• You may bring in any printed materials to the exam; any textbooks, any papers, etc.
• You may use any calculator during the exam.
• You may answer the questions in any order in the answer booklet.
• Time saving tip: please use bullet points to answer, where appropriate, and never repeat the question back in your answer.
• If any part of the question seems ambiguous, please make a clear and reasonable assumption, and continue your answer.

I have posted some questions for you to practice, particularly some troubleshooting questions. The final exam from 2012 is also posted for you to practice (no solutions available however).

How to prepare for the exam

• Understand the concepts being learned. My courses are not about applying the correct equation and solving.
• Check that your answers are reasonable and comment on whether they are, and especially if they seem unreasonable. This demonstrates that even though you have a calculation error, you have used your engineering judgement to identify that.
• Read the questions carefully: they are usually worded precisely. The biggest point where students loose marks is to answer only part of the question.
• Questions that you did on computer in the assignments: make sure you can repeat them by hand. Obviously not where you have to draw an entire economic analysis, but make sure the calculations can be done for one or two periods.
• Review and repeat all assignment questions that you do not understand. Do not rely on the assignment solutions: none of the final exam questions are going to be from the assignments (even with different values).
• Try some of the practice questions (they are not my questions).
• Regarding the SDL presentations: treat them as practice problems, especially for the HAZOP, safety and operability sections of the course. Look at the flowsheets shown in the presentations and check if they are reasonable. What would you do differently?
• I cannot emphasize this strongly enough, even though experience has shown me that most of you will disregard this advice: treat the exam as a closed-book test: have a formula sheet for the equations, and understand all the concepts without referring to a textbook. Textbooks and other papers should be used to refer to as a backup only.