Why I Enjoy Being a Training Instructor

May was a busy training month for me. With the pending release of a major PIPE-FLO software update, all of the other engineers that teach our Piping System Fundamentals (PSF) course were busy. As a result I was asked to teach back to back courses in Denver and Tucson. I enjoy teaching, it gives me the opportunity to go to new locations, discover new processes, meet interesting people and share experiences with others.

The objective of the PSF course is to provide a clear picture of how the various elements in a pumped system work together. The course is based on the method that the US Navy Nuclear Power Program has been using to train their officers and enlisted personnel to become operators of their nuclear powered ships. 

Each class starts out with introductions. I start out by telling them about my sea year experience at the US Merchant Marine Academy, and my Navy experience. One point I stress is when I was out at sea, if the ship’s crew was unable to fix a problem, none of us would make it back home. I then stated that one of the things I liked the most about working ashore (besides being home every night) was the ability to call engineers at the home office, talk to vendors, and colleagues to help me solve a challenging problem. 

Next we go around the room with each attendee introduce themselves and what knowledge they hoped to take away from the course. It’s amazing the diverse background we get in the PSF course, we have engineers, plant operators, mechanics, maintenance and operations managers, along with pump and control valve sales people. One goal of our PSF course is to provide a means for the attendees with diverse backgrounds to learn and share their experiences with others.

For the first day and a half we discuss tanks, pumps, pipes, control valves, instrumentation, and process equipment. The objective in these equipment sections is to turn the attendees into educated consumers, allowing them to understand how the equipment operates, and explain how not running the equipment properly will increase their operating and maintenance costs. Each of the sections has a variety of examples to help them use and apply the lessons to troubleshooting pumped systems.

My favorite question to ask is “How many of you have pump curves for every pump in your plant?”  At the most one possibly two people out of 25 will raise their hand, another 2 to 4 people will have pump curves for 50% of their pumps, and a few more have curves for 25% of their pump. The second question I ask is “How many of you know where your pumps are running on their curve?”  I have only had a few times in which I got a positive response to this one. 

In the afternoon on the second day we put everything together and start looking at systems. We start out by building systems with multiple pipes, tanks, pumps, controls until we have a total system. There are many “Ah-ha moments” throughout the course and plenty of questions. This is a fast paced section that everyone likes with lively Q&A. The nice thing is that with the diverse groups of attendees many of them share some of their specialized experiences. For example one day a mill wright had everyone’s attention when he described what it took to start a pump for the first time. 

It’s not all fun and games in the training business. I remember an onsite course at a refinery in Ohio. Half the attendees were recent college graduates, the other half were engineers with 10 – 15 years of experience. After an hour, I notice that no one had asked a single question. Conducting a course when there are no questions asked makes for a long day, and it’s usually not a good sign.

During the first break, I had people come up to ask questions about the topic we just covered. I then realized that the recent college graduates were concerned about asking a “stupid” question in front of their supervisors. The experienced engineers didn’t want to chance making a “foolish response” to one of my questions. To solve the problem I started asking questions to specific recent college graduates, and started asking some of the senior engineers if they had anything they would like to add. By the end of the first day we have an excellent exchange of questions and information.

In the introduction of a recent regional course in Los Angeles, one of the attendees (with as much grey hair as I have) stated his course objective was to sit through 16 hours of training so he could meet his continuing educational requirements. As we started the course, he was busy checking his e-mail, and would occasionally listen. As the course progressed he stopped reading e-mail and started following along, including asking questions and providing insight. During lunch on the second day he came to me and said:

“I have been designing and starting piping systems for over 30 years now. I am knowledgeable in most of the things that you have covered, but I have never seen it presented in such a logical method as this course. I am glad I came.”

One final point, it’s not only the attendees that learn in the course, but I probably get as much out of these courses as the attendees. I learn about new processes, how the various people within an engineering firms and process plants interact with pumped system, and gain a lot of industry insight. 

So if you would like to gain a better understanding of how piping system work and improve your trouble shooting skills I would encourage you to join us for one of our upcoming regional training courses or even look into an onsite training at your own facility.

Tell me about some of your recent training experiences. Either as an attendee OR an instructor. I am interested to hear about your experiences. Leave a comment below, and as always, thank you for reading!

James Watt

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 14 seconds. Read Later

This month's blog is about James Watt (1736 to 1819) the Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose work on the early steam engine ushered in the industrial revolution and laid the foundation for the study of thermodynamics.

James Watt started out his professional career as maker of mathematical instruments including parallel rulers, telescopes, barometers and such. While working on an astronomical instrument at the University of Glasgow his skills were so appreciated that in 1757, he was offered space to set up his workshop to repair the universities instruments.

Two years later, Watt started looking at the Newcomen steam engine, which was used to pump water from the coalmines throughout Scotland and England. The Newcomen steam engine consisted of a cylinder, piston, and balance beam with a counter weight. The steam was introduced into the base of the cylinder driving the piston. Once the piston was at the top of its stroke, a valve closed the steam flow, and another valve opened injecting cold water into the cylinder. The cold water created a vacuum within the cylinder causing the piston to retract. The piston was connected to a rocker beam and the other end of the rocker beam was connected to a rod pump that pumped out the mine.

The primary drawback of the Newcomen steam engine was the need to inject cold water into the cylinder to create the vacuum. The cold water caused the walls of the cylinder to cool down requiring additional steam injection to warm up the cylinder.

In 1763 Watt was asked to repair the University’s Newcomen steam engine. Although never having seen one before he was able to get it operating, but quickly determined that most of the steam being supplied to the engine was used to heat the cylinder after each cold water injection cycle.

By 1765 Watt determined that by condensing the steam in a separate chamber instead of the piston, and by keeping the cylinder temperature the same value as the inlet steam temperature, he realized that more energy from the steam could be converted to mechanical energy. The Watt steam engine still used saturated steam slightly above atmospheric pressure. The steam was injected into the cylinder at the bottom of the piston stroke to move the piston. On the Watt steam engine, a valve in the cylinder was opened once the piston reached the end of the stroke allowing steam to flow to a separate chamber. Water was then injected into the separate chamber to condense the steam. Later the condensing chamber was further improved by setting the condenser chamber in a cold-water tank, eliminating the need to inject cold water. Further improvements were made by collecting the warm condensate from the condenser and using it as boiler feed.

Watt further improved the design by sealing the top of the cylinder and injecting low-pressure steam into the top of the upper part of the cylinder to help move the piston down. This helped push the steam from the cylinder to the condenser chamber while increasing the speed of the engine. In 1775 these design improvement went into the first production version.

Like every good startup Watt needed a moneyman or “angel investor.” (The term “angel” was first used in 1978 by William Wetzel, a professor at that time at the University of New Hampshire.) Enter Matthew Boulton a serial entrepreneur that funded the Watt’s first steam engine. The new company Watt and Boulton got their original design completed and installed three engines in 1776. Their engines used 75% less fuel than the Newcomen engine due to its more efficient use of steam.

The early company made a practice of not selling the steam engines directly, instead they were given to the mine but the Watt and Boulton company charged a license fee to the engine owners based on their fuel savings over the Newcomen engine. As you can imagine many of the users of the Watt Boulton steam engines tried to stiff the company by not paying their full licensing. This resulted in multiple legal actions, making them both wealthy men.

Additional improvements to the Watt and Boulton engine occurred in later designs when the cylinders could be “precision bored” to minimize steam leakage. In addition an arrangement of steam inlet valves on the other side of the piston, allows the entrance of steam to both ends of the piston. This resulted in a double action engine, which in effect doubled the power output of the engine.

The next major improvement included the addition of epicycle sun and planet gears, and a flywheel to allow the output of the reciprocating engine to supply power to rotary loads. Now steam engines could replace water wheels and windmills in grain mills, textile mills, and other factories allowing the location of industrial plants anywhere instead of being required to be located next to streams and rivers. As an aside, Watt used the epicycle sun and plant gears to avoid paying licensing fees to the inventor of the crank. Once the patent for the crank ran out, the Watt and Boulton engines used the crank and flywheel design.

Watt continued to make improvements to the steam engine, including the flywheel governor to even out the load, and the Watt indicator to monitor the efficiency of his steam engine. Watt never stopped inventing. He developed the concept of horsepower and the SI unit of power, (the watt), was named after him. Watt pioneered the efficiency effort using improved design, among many of his great contributions.

I consider James Watt both and inventor, as well as the father of mechanical engineering. He took a rudimentary steam engine, gained an understanding of how it operated, and improved its efficiency 100 years prior to the study of thermodynamics. Not only did the Watt and Boulton steam engine do an excellent job of pumping out coalmines in England, but also its ability to bring power to any industrial process anywhere that required energy made the industrial revolution possible.

As you can see, just as today, in the 1700s there was cutting-edge technology, angle investors, patent disputes and legal action to enforce intellectual property rights. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Who do you consider as the father of engineering? Who would better represent the mechanical engineering field? Let me know by leaving a comment or sending me an email to blogger@eng-software.com. We are welcoming guest bloggers. Just send us a message if you would be interested in becoming a guest blogger.

Professional Engineer Designation

GUEST POST by Greg Hora, PE

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 7 seconds. Read Later

"I never knew you wanted to be a gym teacher!" was the response I received from one of my friends after I told them I passed the PE exam. "Well, not exactly…" was my response.

My name is Greg Hora and I’m a Professional Engineer (PE). Many of you reading this blog are yourselves engineers and PE’s. Today, I'd like to write about the PE designation; what it means, why you might want to become one, and what it takes to sit for the exam.

Ok, so what is a PE?

A PE is an engineer who has met their state’s requirements on engineering and is designated as a person who is skilled in the art of engineering. The PE designation was created in order to protect the safety and welfare of the people who will be affected by your work. By becoming a PE, you are in effect stating that you are skilled enough to perform engineering work for the public and the public can be assured that you know what you’re talking about. After obtaining this title you become legally liable for any engineering work you certify as a PE.

Interestingly, most states will typically give you the generic title of "Professional Engineer" and not "Mechanical Professional Engineer" or “Civil Professional Engineer”. I am a mechanical engineer by trade and I have the title of Professional Engineer. Now, does this entitle me to perform electrical or civil engineering work since I have my PE? Not likely… While the title is generic I’m bound by my state's regulations (and common sense) to only perform engineering work within the areas that I'm competent in.

You might be asking yourself...

"I'm an engineer performing engineering duties but I'm not a PE, what gives?" Each state’s regulations will describe this situation a little differently but for the most part there will typically be a section in the rules that exempt people from having to be a PE as long as they are working as an employee under a registered engineer and that their work does not include any responsible position of design or supervision.

As I just pointed out, you are allowed to perform engineering duties without having your PE as long as you’re working under a PE or are not in a responsible/supervisor role. Now, what if you want to move up the corporate ladder into some senior positions? This is where obtaining your PE becomes critical. Some organizations might be structured to allow you to have more responsibility without having your PE, but you’re going to be hitting that glass ceiling at some point without it, Having your PE will also allow you to negotiate better for a raise at your current position.

If you ever wanted to start your own engineering firm, you need to have your PE. Only a PE can stamp and certify engineering drawings or plans submitted to the public.

Not only does having your PE allow you to progress through the ranks at your current company, but it will be an asset if you ever decide to change companies. Imagine a hiring manager looking over a stack of resumes. It comes down to you and one other applicant. Both of you have the required skills and experience, but you have your PE. Who do you think will get the call to interview first?

Pursuing your own PE

If you're interested in pursuing your PE there are a few requirements you'll need to meet. An application to your state board is required before you can sit for the exam. You’ll need to meet education, experience, and approval letter requirements.

For your application to be accepted, you must meet the minimum engineering work experience requirements (measured in years). The education and experience requirements are related to each other and each state will have their own unique combinations of the two. An engineering technology degree will typically require a longer period of engineering experience than a bachelor’s degree. The required experience typically decreases as you go up the degree chain to masters and doctoral, but again this will vary from state to state.

A good place to find your state's licensing board is to look at the PE exam administrator National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying® (NCEES). Their website is at www.ncees.org. Another variable that can affect the required length of experience is whether or not you passed the FE exam after you obtained your degree (this exam used to be called the EIT - there is no difference between the two). You will generally need less engineering experience when that experience time is obtained while you have your FE. One combination of experience and degree that works for all states is four years of experience (while you have your FE) and a bachelor’s degree.

In addition to the engineering experience, you will need to include some letters of recommendation with your application. Again, the requirements from state to state will vary but you will typically need letters from people who are already PEs and who have firsthand experience with your work.

After all of your material is sent into the state board, and your application is approved, all that is left is for you to pass the PE exam. You'll take the exam in whatever discipline you applied for. The exam is multiple choice format and given over a single eight hour day with a break for lunch. The exam is open book meaning you can bring all of your reference books in for help.

So there you go!

Obtaining your PE is a rewarding experience. It will open up avenues in your career that are not otherwise available and lead you to more challenging experiences. I wish you all the best in your journey to become a PE!

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If you would like to read more from Greg Hora or take advantage of some of the resources he offers, check out his website and blog: www.peprepme.com/

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