Often in the forum there are questions about which book or published resource to refer for a particular subject

in process engineering. If we look around the li st is huge and sometimes some engineer may have access to some book whereas the other person may have access to another book. Apart from the standard chemical e ngineering texts during the undergraduate course which most young chemical engin eers are familiar such as "McCabe & Smith", "Coulson & Richardson", "Treybal", " Smith & Van Ness", "Levenspiel", "Wilkes" "Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot" and "Ker n", there are several specialized books on subjects such as pumps, compressors, mixers, dryers, natural gas, steam, petroleum and many such other. The purpose o f this blog entry is to list down a few of these books which I have personally e ncountered during my career. There is no order of preference in the subject-wise list provided and the readers may have their own preferences regarding which bo ok provides a better coverage to a particular subject. Readers may also provide their own preferences on the book for the particular subject matter in the comme nts section of the blog entry. Natural Gas Engineering 1. GPSA Engineering Databook (By far amongst the best resources I have encountered for any kind of process de sign engineering not only in the natural gas engineering field but also general engineering related to vessels, hydraulics, instrumentation etc.) 2. Fundamentals of Natural Gas Processing by Arthur J. Kidnay and William R. Par rish (an excellent extension to the GPSA Engineering Databook. Some missing info rmation from the databook has been explained in this book) 3. Handbook of Natural Gas Transmission & Processing by Saeid Mokhatab, William A. Poe, James J. Speight 4. Natural Gas Engineering Handbook by Dr. Boyun Ghuo and Dr. Ali Gahalambor (Has a small collection of excel spreadsheets related to natural gas engineering as part of the book) 5. Standard Handbook of Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering by Wiiliam C. Lyons Pipelines 1. Pipeline Rules of Thumb Handbook by E. W. McAllister 2. Liquid Pipeline Hydraulics by E. Shashi Menon 3. Gas Pipeline Hydraulics by E. Shashi Menon 4. Subsea Pipelines & Risers by Yong Bai & Qiang Bai Compressors 1. Compressors: Selection and Sizing by Royce N. Brown (my personal favorite sin ce I used it to develop calculations related to both centrifugal and reciprocati ng compressor although the units used in the book are English units) 2. Compressor Handbook by Paul C. Hanlon 3. Compressors and Modern Process Applications by Heinz P. Bloch Pumps 1. Pump Handbook by Igor Karassik, Joseph P. Messina, Paul Cooper, Charles C. He ald

(widely accepted for pump design even by nuclear regulatory authorities) 2. Sulzer Centrifugal Pump Handbook Petroleum Refining 1. Petroleum Refinery Engineering by W. L. Nelson 2. Handbook of Petroleum Processing by David S.J. "Stan" Jones and Peter R. Puja do 3. Refining Processes Handbook by Surinder Prakash Distillation 1. Distillation Design by Henry Z. Kister 2. Distillation Operation by Henry Z. Kister 3. Packed Tower Design and Applications by Ralph F.Strigle, Jr. Drying 1. Handbook of Industrial Drying by Carl W. Hall Mixing 1. Handbook of Industrial Mixing Science & Practice by Edward L. Paul, Victor A. Atiemo-Obeng & Suzanne M. Kresta Chemical Process Design & Economics 1. Plant Design and Economics for Chemical Engineers by Max S. Peters and Klaus D. Timmerhaus 2. Chemical Process Engineering - Design & Economics by Harry Silla Pipe Hydraulics 1. Flow of fluids through Valves, Fittings and Pipes, Crane Technical Paper 410M 2. Chemical Engineering Fluid Mechanics by Ron Darby Steam 1. Steam - It's Generation and Use by The Babcock & Wilcox Company (This is like a Bible on Steam) 2. Industrial Boilers and Heat Recovery Steam Generators: Design, Applications, and Calculations by V. Ganapathy Health, Safety & Environment 1. Loss Prevention in the Process Industries by Frank P Lees 2. Fundamentals of Stack Gas Dispersion by Milton R. Beychok General Design Calculation Books 1. Handbook of Chemical Engineering Calculations by Nicholas P. Chopey

2. Chemical Process Equipment - Selection & Design by Stanley M. Walas 3. Pocket Guide to Chemical Engineering by Carl R. Branan 4. Process Design for Reliable Operations by Norman P. Lieberman I could go on and on but I believe that even if any chemical engineer is able to read and grasp through a miniscule fraction of the contents of the books mentio ned above he or she is going to find that his or her knowledge has increased sig nificantly and that makes him or her a far improved engineer and the person has embarked on a career path of growth and success. Readers are welcome to add to the list and discuss their thoughts and opinions o n this blog entry. Regards, Ankur.

17 Comments

kamble.shridhar Jun 16 2011 09:31 AM the books u have listed out is really wonderful and u have eased my problem abou t which one to go for... thanks a lot, Shridhar kamble pkbhaba Jun 17 2011 10:28 AM Hello Mr.Ankur Really it is so good job you have done. Especially Chemical Engineering students may get benefited. If possible could you give information about the publishers? Regards pkbhaba SL89 Jun 17 2011 09:30 PM Perry's Chemical Engineering Handbook certainly should be on any list of ChemE r eference books. DB Shah Jun 17 2011 11:56 PM Learn from others mistke - "What Went Wrong" by Trevor Kletz is a must read to k now what not to do.

rowanlim Jun 18 2011 01:15 AM Thanks for this article, Ankur! I would like to know what books you would recomm end to study on the design of heat exchangers? Thanks! ankur2061 Jun 18 2011 03:06 AM rowanlim, on 18 June 2011 - 01:15 AM, said: Thanks for this article, Ankur! I would like to know what books you would recomm end to study on the design of heat exchangers? Thanks! rowanlim, I have not done much study on heat exchangers apart from the the standard book o f "Process Heat Transfer" by D.Q. Kern. However some of knowledgable friends and colleagues recommend the following books which are very useful int today's envi ronment where software such as HTRI, HTFS etc. are used for thermal design of he at exchangers: Practical Thermal Design of Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchangers by Rajiv Mukherjee Practical Thermal Design of Air-Cooled Heat Exchangers by Rajiv Mukherjee Regards, Ankur. CristianG Jun 20 2011 06:37 PM Thank you, Ankur! It was a very good idea to make this reference list. Keep going! chem101pj Jun 27 2011 03:32 AM Thank you, ankur for the list of books i have to nimble to become a process engi neer... Sadananda Konchady Jul 03 2011 11:22 PM Further to the books about heat exchangers mentioned by others, for understandi ng and interpretation of computer software output from heat exchanger softwares, one book which also has worked out examples is: Robert W. Serth. Process Heat Transfer. Principles and Applications Academic Press (2007) D_V_SINGH Jul 06 2011 04:06 AM Nice yaar,can u send some books on dvsingh689@gmail.com ON ankur2061 Jul 06 2011 05:21 AM Singh, Most of the books are available on Amazon.com including used as well as new book s. The prices for used books are quite reasonable. Buy it from there. Here is th e link: http://www.amazon.co...;qid=1309948236

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Regards, Ankur. martorul303 Jul 06 2011 05:32 AM I do not find Ludwig's Applied Process Design for Chemical and Petrochemical Pla nts on the list jyothi Jul 08 2011 11:45 PM Ankur,,, Thank U so.........much......U eased maa problem by listing awesum books... ......all these yrs am scratchin' my head which one to go..........Thax on ce again.......keep doin' gud wrk....GBU:) dannymagee Jul 15 2011 02:43 AM D_V_SINGH, on 06 July 2011 - 04:06 AM, said: Nice yaar,can u send some books on dvsingh689@gmail.com ON Try this one : Process Plant Design

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J.R. Backhurst & J.H. Harker

May be a bit dated but good enough in my day and still provides a good single so urce for process plant design. Regards, Danny ZAK Dec 01 2011 06:40 AM Applied Process Design for Chemical and Petrochemical Plant by Ernest E Ludwig ( Vol-1,2 &3) is also a very good resource for design engineers. sheiko Jan 21 2012 03:59 PM For information, I have just bought "Refining Processes Handbook" by Surinder Pr akash and I am so disappointed. The english is not good and the reading is borin g. Moreover, the process part of the book is not that detailed. Ankur, I would like your point of view on this book please. ankur2061 Jan 22 2012 08:46 AM Sheiko, I have gone through the book in a superficial manner. I had referred it for the purpose of refinery tankages mentioned in the chapter "Refinery Offsite faciliti es and Utility Systems". In fact I had prepared some design notes in excel on re finery tankage using this book as a reference, which considering my lack of expo sure to design and engineering of refineries was something I thought was quite n ice. Since my expertise is limited in refinery unit operations I cannot comment on th e overall usefulness of the book. In fact by some coincidence it is the third bo ok in the list provided in my blog entry with the Nelson and Jones / Pujado appe aring as 1 and 2 respectively.

Regards, Ankur.