Weekly guest and student speakers in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

Gavin TowlerHoneywell

Title: Connected Plant

Abstract: Advances in process instrumentation, internet connectivity and cloud computing are setting the stage for a revolution in process automation technology. Chemical plant operators are increasingly able to fit sophisticated models to plant data in close to real time, enabling better decisions on process optimization, plant reliability and worker safety and productivity. While the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) / Industrie 4.0 provides the potential to transform the way chemical plants are operated, the success of these technologies depends on deployment of chemical engineering insights and the transfer of chemical engineering methodologies from steady-state design mode to dynamic operational mode. Examples will be given to illustrate how engineers at Honeywell are approaching these challenges.

Bio: Gavin Towler is the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Honeywell Performance Materials & Technologies (PMT). Honeywell PMT is a global leader in providing customers with high-performance specialty materials, process technologies and materials for petroleum refining, petrochemical production, and natural gas processing as well as products, services and solutions for industrial process automation. Gavin has 27 years of broad experience of process and product design in the chemicals and fuels industries and has 72 US patents. He is co-author of "Chemical Engineering Design", a textbook on process design, and is an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University and the National University of Singapore, where he helps teach the senior design classes. Gavin has a B.A. and M.Eng. in chemical engineering from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley. He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers, a Fellow of the AIChE and a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering.