A real time approach to process control education with an open-ended simulation tool

• Auxiliary workshops are used in teaching process dynamics and control.
• The workshops introduce chemical process simulators and illustrate theories.
• Case studies were provided to show how workshops can help students comprehending the theories.
• Both positive and negative feedback were presented and discussed.
• Future work and enhancements were proposed according to the feedbacks.

Process simulators are widely used in industrial process designs and academic research. These simulation tools are also perfectly suitable for the process dynamics and control education of junior chemical engineers and students, as these tools mimetically help them with comprehending the basic theories of process control, such as process capacity, dead time, control loops, controllers and multi-unit processes such as distillation columns. At the University of Auckland, New Zealand, final year Chemical and Materials Engineering students who participate in the process dynamics and control paper are required to complete a series of simulation workshops in auxiliary sessions to help them in their understanding of process dynamics and control. This paper introduces the content of the workshops as well as reviews the student feedback on the introduction of the simulator and their perceptions of their learning of process dynamics and control as assisted by the software and instruction. Three case studies are provided in this paper to illustrate the benefits of running workshops. The motivation of this paper is to share our workshop design with other universities.