CHEG 4140 - Chemical Engineering Capstone Design I Portfolio

Learning Outcome 1:

[I have] demonstrated basic safety analyses and/or calculations for a process (examples include: relief valve sizing, HAZOP analysis, reactor safety, etc.)

Learning Outcome 2:

[I have] examined and discussed the environmental impact of a process or portion of a process (examples include: life-cycle analysis, emissions standards, regulatory information, etc.)

Learning Outcome 3:

[I have] performed sizing and/or materials selection calculations based on the needs of a process or a specific unit operation.

Learning Outcome 4:

[I have] performed a preliminary economic analysis of a process or portion of a process.

Learning Outcome 5:

[I have] discussed the contemporary societal and ethical challenges present in engineering and/or design, based on investigations into the literature and other media sources.

10.1: From the news or literature in the last calendar year, identify a story or incident that relates to decision making in an engineering context. After reading, identify the ethical, moral, or societal issues that are the most influential in the story and discuss your interpretation of those issues. How do you think you would have or could have approached the situation differently and why?

All over the world, throughout many industries, companies and organizations have to deal with ethical, moral, and social dilemmas constantly. Obviously, they want to keep these at a minimum, but they should not be skipped over, for the safety of consumers is of the utmost importance. One company that deals with this a lot is Boeing. The majority of flights that we are on for our travels are Boeing Airplanes. With such a large consumer base, they are often held at the highest standard for safety. On June 18, 2021, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet flying for British Airways was parked on its stand at London Heathrow Airport where its nose struck the ground, causing significant damage. The lower front side of the fuselage was damaged, causing minor injuries to the co-pilot and a cargo loading crew member. This brings in the question of whether anything was neglected in safety protocol with an underlying ethical issue.

This flight was scheduled for a cargo departure to Frankfurt, Germany, so luckily there were not any unsuspecting tourists involved. The main issue was that, when the maintenance crew was working on addressing three fault codes for the nose landing gear, the Licensed Aircraft Engineer told the captain it would only take about forty minutes to resolve the issue. The captain did not see anything wrong during his walk-around, so the crew resumed loading freight onto the aircraft. When the First Officer received clearance for departure, the landing gear was raised to the up position which then crashed the nose into the ground.

Upon further inspection, the cause of the crash was deemed to be an incorrect pin placement. The nose landing gear downlock pin was found to be installed in the wrong place. They could not hear or see anything that would have led them to believe the pin was in the wrong place, though. The installation by the maintenance team is supposed to be guided by airworthiness standards; however, there was no documentation confirming that on this installation.

There are at least two ways this incident could have been avoided. One being preventative maintenance and two being further inspection and communication before attempted departure. When combining the ethical, moral, and societal shortcomings of just two different parties, problems are likely to arise, which is why we have to make sure everyone is on board with their standards. In the case of the maintenance, it seems like it would be easy to complete all the necessary preventative measures, but humans are bound to make some mistakes. Some may be overworked and not thinking clearly, some might be trying to rush in order to leave work early, and some might be morally naïve to what consequences a small fault may have, or they just may not care in which they should not be in a profession where safety is so important. On the other hand, it is not just the maintenance crew’s fault. Prior to loading cargo, the crew should have investigated the three fault codes until they found out what exactly was wrong with the aircraft. Why might they have skipped over this issue so quickly? This could be many things, including miscommunication, being in a rush, and profit incentives. Profit incentives seem to be one of the most common ethical issues across all industries. All of us want to make money, but that should come after guaranteeing the safety of our society. When flying a cargo airplane, or any plane for that matter, pilots have to stick to strict schedules. They were most likely due to deliver the cargo to Frankfurt at a certain time that they were trying to be on schedule for, which could have caused them to rush. Also, being able to consistently deliver to buyers will make you a credible supplier/distributor, and being late could mean costing the buyers more money and developing a lack of trust in their supplier. If the supplier were to lose their buyer’s trust, then they would be likely to lose money too. Overall, this particular Boeing incident is a good example of an engineering mishap that could be studied in order to see what was done and what could have been done to prevent future disasters.

References

Petrauskaite, Gabriele. “BA Boeing 787 Nose-Gear Incident Caused by Engineer Fault: AAIB.” AeroTime Hub, 4 Nov. 2022, https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/32566-ba-boeing-787-nose-gear-incident-caused-by-engineer-fault-aaib.

Common Design Project 10: Based on your understanding of aspirin production using this methodology, what do you view as the ethical, moral, or societal impacts of this process?

Many of us our familiar with Aspirin, which is more formally known as acetylsalicylic acid. It is produced by the reaction of salicylic acid with acetic anhydride where the acetic anhydride acetylates the salicylic acid. In our common design project, our focus was on production of the precursor, acetic anhydride. First, ketene (ethenone) and methane produced through the thermal decomposition of acetone. The ketene is then fed to an absorption tower and finally a distillation column, where the outlet is acetic anhydride. The part that brings up the potential ethical, moral, and societal dilemmas that we are going to be focusing on is the production of ketene before it becomes acetic anhydride.

For the thermal decomposition to occur, the reaction occurs in the gaseous phase at high temperatures and moderate pressures. Considering that the reaction is in the gaseous phase, one of the first safety concerns should be regulating pressure. Before we ship off the precursor and worry about the post-production consequences, we want to take the safety of our workers and plant into account. We want to make sure all of our plant workers understand how important the safety of this process is and that they are diligent about mitigation. A possible dilemma could be that a worker either was distracted and unaware of or saw something and failed to implement mitigation strategies. Our priority should be ensuring that pressure controllers, indicators, gages, etc. are working properly so that the reactor doesn’t blow up, jeopardizing the safety of everyone, and diminishing our output. In order to achieve our product in the safest manner, the reaction should be run at 700 degrees Celsius and 162 kPa while also restricting the conversion to 40%. When it comes to output, there’s likely to be some ethical issues that come about. Other than safety, one the plant’s top priorities is output. The more we produce, the more money we make, right? Well, if safety is jeopardized, revenue losses due to output would be the least of our worries. Let’s say someone new gets hired in a management position at the plant, and their primary goal is growing the company and maximizing profits. Someone needs to be there to draw the line at which more profit does not warrant pushing the boundaries of safety. This is why we need a collective group of ethically and morally responsible individuals at the company and why hiring should entail more than just “Can you get our output to where it needs to be, etc”.

Not only do we have to consider the immediate impacts of our plant, but there are also some down the road to consider too. The process of producing ketene has immediate standards for safety, but have we considered our outlet streams? Going back to the reaction, we see that methane is one of the products in the thermal decomposition reaction. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is a powerful contributor to climate change. Along with CO2, it amplifies the effects of carbon emissions. It may not seem like a pressing manner now, but we need to help do our part in reducing emissions too if we want the planet to be sustainable. To help out, we can minimize our methane emissions by reducing output, which in turn makes the process safer and less susceptible to explosion too. We can also consider capturing the methane, just as carbon capture technology is becoming a more well-known thing. From there, we can find ways to repurpose the methane instead of just dumping it into the atmosphere, and effectively warming the globe, causing sea levels to rise, etc. It is interesting to see how just in one step of pre-production of a useful drug, there are many things to consider from an ethical standpoint which opens up endless possibilities in which we can do our part to ensure the safety and well-being of society.

References

“Acetic Anhydride.” Chematur Engineering AB, 8 June 2015, https://chematur.se/technologies/bio-chemicals/acetic-anhydride/#:~:text=Acetic%20anhydride%20is%20produced%20from,with%20water%20at%20high%20temperature.