FE Chemical Review Manual (FECHRM)

Customer Reviews (View All - 15)

Great Book Review by Denis

Overall

This is the perfect book to prepare yourself for the exam! Recommended! (Posted on 10/25/2018)

I love this type of reference manual Review by Amazon.com Customer

Overall

OVERVIEW
This is a superbly produced reference manual for chemical engineering and covers the syllabus for the Chemical Fundamentals of Engineering exam. It also comes at a superb price but you get what you pay for. While it is not a study guide - there is a brief "diagnostic exam" at the start of each topic section that should clue you into how much of that section you actually need to review. This is an excellent place to go to brush up on stuff you are supposed to know already and it is comprehensive (enough that it could be almost your single working reference book). Unlike the similar manual for civil engineering, this book is less likely to go out of date when it comes to codes and standards - I think topic XIV on Safety, Health and Environment is the only section where standards might change unpredictably.
ORGANIZATION
The chapters are organized 16 sections or topics.
I Mathematics
II Probability and Statistics
III Fluid Mechanics/Dynamics
IV Thermodynamics
V Chemistry
VI Heat Transfer
VII Engineering Sciences
VIII Materials Science
IX Chemical Reaction Engineering
X Mass Transfer
XI Unit Processes
XII Process Control
XIII Process Design and Economics
XIV Safety, Health and Environment
XV Computational Tools
XVI Ethics and Professional Practice
Some of these sections are quite long and the whole volume weighs in at 800 pages. The surprise to anyone who has not trained as a chemical engineer is that the section on chemistry is relatively short. Of course, chemical engineers know that chemical engineering is mostly about moving materials around. This entails knowing a lot of mathematics so that you can understand the equations involved in fluid dynamics and also in reaction kinetics. The physical side of chemistry and chemical engineering is heavily dependent on algebra and differential equations. The mathematics section alone would provide useful review &/or education for folks who are not actually engineers as it is so comprehensive.
I am not going to list the chapters in each section. They are numerous and appropriate - trust me. The material in the chapters is clear, accurate and well presented in a terse kind of way and there are plenty of examples which are useful if you happen to draw a blank when staring at an equation without an example to give you context. (I don't have that problem but most people do and that gives ME a problem when I am trying to explain theory to others.) I think many people would find this book not only useful for review but also as a handy reference. (Posted on 3/22/2017)

Excellent format for a study guide - pass that test! Review by Amazon.com Customer

Overall

I'll trust that if you're looking at this book, you know exactly what you're looking for as far as subject matter - but you may be wondering if you want to drop the cash to buy this one. So rather than state how great it is to have all the information condensed into a single book, I'm going to focus more on the format, rather than the content.

But first - the content is there - it's a hefty book that should probably have the table of contents in the product description.

The format? Very easy to follow, especially if you're..you know, studying to pass the exam. Each section follows the same format - a description of the topic, an example that includes a "work through this" type of problem, and a solution with all the work shown (or reasoning behind the answer declared. While not all topics have the "example question," the ones that don't have significant description that explains the concept fully.

Since the major topics aren't listed in the product description, they are:
1. Mathematics
2. Probability and Statistics
3. Fluid Mechanics/Dynamics
4. Thermodynamics
5. Chemistry
6. Heat Transfer
7. Engineering Sciences
8. Materials Science
9. Chemical Reaction Engineering
10. Mass Transfer
11. Unit Processes
12. Process Design and Economics
13. Safety, Health, and Environment
14. Computational Tools
15. Ethics and Professional Practice

For me, the content is there but the format is designed to really reinforce the knowledge. That said, if you're learning any of the topics for the first time, you'll probably want another book to accompany this, as this is very to-the-point about what needs to get done, and its purpose isn't to delve into the academic theory and reasoning behind it (though it does an admirable job, for a review/study guide.) Recommended. (Posted on 9/27/2016)