What Are the Easiest Chemical Engineering Courses?

Chemical engineering is the field of engineering concerned with developing and designing chemical manufacturing processes and chemical plants.

It's a complex field based on many advanced science and math principles.

So, are there any easy chemical engineering courses?

Keep reading as we break down some of the easiest chemical engineering courses you may encounter.

What Are the Easiest Chemical Engineering Courses?

Each person has different strengths and weaknesses, so what one person finds easy another may find hard.

That being said, some chemical engineering courses are considered generally easier than others.

Introduction to Chemical Engineering

Not all colleges and universities offer an introductory chemical engineering course, but many do.

These courses are designed to lay the foundation for the rest of the chemical engineering major.

As it's an introductory course, the concepts are often broken down in ways that are easy to understand because it's not expected that you know a lot about chemical engineering yet.

In this course, you'll likely cover foundational concepts like material and energy balances, matter and energy conservation, and the development of quantitative models for physical systems.

Material and Energy Balances

If your program does not have an introductory chemical engineering course, you may need to take a course on material and energy balances.

This course may also be called something like mass and energy balances or chemical process principles.

Mass or material balance is an accounting of material entering and leaving a system.

These types of courses cover material and energy balances for single-phase and multi-phase processes common to chemical engineering.

Your course may also cover things like phase equilibrium and analysis of reacting systems, as well as the development of mathematical models to describe chemical process dynamic behavior.

However, if your program does have an introductory course, this type of course may not be included as this information is typically covered in chemical engineering introductory courses.

Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics is the study of the relations between heat, work, temperature, and energy.

It's a key concept necessary for the study of chemical engineering.

Your thermodynamics course will likely go over the basic principles of thermodynamics, including:

• First and second laws of thermodynamics
• Equations of state
• Pressure, specific volume, and temperature (PVT) properties
• Properties of ideal and real fluids
• Power cycles and refrigeration
• Phase equilibria
• Fugacity and activity coefficients
• Multi-reaction equilibrium

Most chemical engineering programs have thermodynamics courses specifically for chemical engineering, which also discuss the way that the above principles apply to the field of chemical engineering.

Fluid Mechanics

Fluid mechanics is the study of fluid behavior, including liquids, gasses, blood, and plasmas, at rest and in motion.

It's another core concept required for chemical engineering.

Courses in fluid mechanics are often offered for the sophomore or junior year, meaning you don't need extensive knowledge in the field to understand the topic.

A fluid mechanics course should cover the basics of fluid mechanics, including:

• Continuum hypothesis
• Scalar and vector fields
• Fluid statics
• Non-Newtonian fluids
• Shell momentum balances
• Equations of motion
• Creeping and potential flow
• Parallel and nearly parallel flows
• Boundary layer theory and separation

Fluid mechanics courses within chemical engineering programs will often also cover things like the analysis and design of equipment using the above principles.

Heat and Mass Transfer

Heat and mass transfer is a subdomain of thermal engineering that focuses on the use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy, or heat, between systems.

A heat and mass transfer course should cover the fundamental principles and applications of heat and mass transfer as well as engineering analysis of mass contactors and heat exchangers.

These courses often build on the topics discussed in your fluid mechanics courses, so you'll likely need to take the fluid mechanics course first.

Some programs incorporate heat and mass transfer into transport processes courses.

Transport Processes

Transport processes courses cover transport phenomena, the exchange of mass, energy, charge, momentum, and angular momentum between observed and studied systems.

Your course may cover topics like:

• General diffusive transport
• Heat transport by conduction
• Fourier's law
• Advection-diffusion equations
• Forced convection
• Free convection
• Radiation
• Evaporation

As part of your chemical engineering program, this course should also highlight the engineering and scientific principles and physical models important to the data collection and interpretation of processes important to the practice of chemical engineering.

Like with courses on heat and mass transfer, courses on transfer processes often build on information learned in fluid mechanics, so you'll likely need to take your fluid mechanics course first.

Find a Chemical Engineering Program

While everyone is different, some of the easier courses in chemical engineering include introductory courses and courses in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and transfer and transport.

For more information about chemical engineering courses or for assistance with finding a chemical engineering program, contact Learn.org today.