Philadelphia Section


September 2002
Chair’s Letter

Dear Friends,

This is my first letter as Chair of the ASME Philadelphia section. First I would like to thank Jerry Jones for his superb leadership as Chairman during the 2001/2002 year. Under Jerry's direction, some very interesting meetings and tours were offered to our section - many with high levels of member participation. It has been a real pleasure working with Jerry this past year.

Also, during the past year, we have completed the process of gaining Landmark Status for the Eddystone Power Generating station. Thanks to John Chen, Bill Coleman, Lou Fendo, and the others who worked so hard to see this through. The next step is to plan and schedule the dedication ceremony at Eddystone.

We are fortunate to have an extremely motivated Executive Committee. This small group works behind the scenes to plan our section's activities and help it's direction. It is very rewarding to be a part of this team. If anyone is interested in participating in the management of the section, please contact me, or any of our Executive Committee members.

For the upcoming year, we are already planning several events. In September, we will be touring the Battleship New Jersey. In October, we will be hosting a presentation on fermentor design by one of the field's foremost experts, which will prove interesting to Engineers in general, and more specifically to those in the pharmaceutical industry. You can find more details on these events in this newsletter. We suggest that you sign up early, as many of these events do fill up !

Over the past couple of years, John Wolf (newsletter editor) and I have developed the web site for our section. You can easily find our site at www.asme.org, click on the 'Shortcuts' dropdown at the right, then click on 'Sections', and 'Philadelphia'.

On our web site, you will find the most recent newsletters, scheduled events, student section info, employment opportunities, and a SURVEY. When requested to complete a survey, we often ask ourselves (as we should) "Is this going to be worth my time?" We feel strongly that it IS worth your time to let us know your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions as to where we should be taking our section. The survey contains several multiple choice questions regarding your preferences for meetings and professional development, as well as general suggestions. By completing the survey, you will be taking an active role in guiding our section.

 
If you're reading this newsletter on line, just click on this link and you'll be taken directly to the survey: www.asme.org/sections/philadelphia/survey.html .

As in the past, we will continue to support our engineering students in the nine local student sections. We are in need of liaisons to help connect the student ASME sections with the Philadelphia section. If you are interested, please let us know.

Also, we realize there is a need to make K-12 students more aware of engineering. This is a challenge, since school curriculums are set and quite tight to begin with. We will be looking at different ways of connecting with the schools to raise this awareness.

I look forward to serving as the Chair this year and hope to hear from you. If you want to drop me a line, you can send it to jtull5@aol.com

Jim Tully
September Meeting
Dinner, Speaker and Tour
Battleship New Jersey
Camden Waterfront


Wednesday, September 18, 2002
See page 3 and 4 for details.

October Meeting
Design of Bioreactors and Fermentors
Speaker and Dinner
Villanova University

Ernest L. Stadler, Product Manager
B. Braun Biotech Inc.
Tuesday, October 8, 2002
See page 3 and 4 for details.

Internet Access

If you would like to read the section newsletter on the web, contact the editor. Postage rates are about to go up again. Even using Pre-Sorted First Class rates, it now costs about 20 cents to mail each newsletter and post card. It does not sound like much but with over 2000 members in the section, it quickly mounts up.

By using the Internet to read and print the newsletter, you can help us reduce our mailing costs. We are asking each member to decide on the method of receiving the newsletter. Of course, we could just send an email notice to members and let it go at that. But it is necessary to make sure that each member is

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notified of section events and other information. Some of our members do not have email and others would prefer to receive the newsletter by mail. For these reasons we are asking that those who are willing to get the newsletter on the Internet, take the positive step of notifying us. Please contact the newsletter editor if you would like to read the newsletter on the Internet. You can read this issue at www.asme.org/sections/philadelphia/sept02.html.

Philadelphia Section Officers 2002/2003
Chair - Jim Tully
(215) 256 5536
jtull5@aol.com
Vice-Chair - Secretary - Anastas Lazaridis
(610) 499 4192
anastas.lazaridis@widener.edu
Secretary - John Chen
(856) 256 5345
jchen@rowan.edu
Treasurer - Fred Willis
(302) 366 0855
Fwillis@pii-equip.com
Senior Director - Lou Fendo
(610) 595 2369
louis.fendo@exeloncorp.com
Junior Director - Open
Newsletter editor - John Wolf
(856) 795 1379
73211.3452@compuserve.com

Please send letters and comments to the editor. Letters will be published unless otherwise requested depending on space limitations.

ASME Puzzler

Last issue's puzzler:

The term horse power in one we use every day. Even non-engineers are familiar with the term. James Watt is usually credited with first using the term and defining a value (I HP = 33,000 ft-lbs/minute. How did Watt arrive at this value?

Answer:

You may not consider this a fair puzzler, since the answer is in a biography of James Watt which was published over 60 years ago. But the obscurity of the answer is what makes it a puzzler.

Most engineers know that 1 horsepower is the amount of energy produced by a horse in a certain amount of time. There were three responses to the puzzler with this basic information from Art Ross, John Sayles, and Melissa Amend. But I was looking for the numbers used to produce the number of 33,000 ft-lbs/minute.

In his book James Watt - Craftsman and Engineer, H. W. Dickenson on page 145 gives the explanation.

Watt was told that generally mill horses walked a path 24 feet in diameter with 2.5 turns per minute. Watt assumed

 

that a horse could pull 180 pounds. Using the definition of power as work per unit time. Watt calculated the numbers

PI * 24 feet * 180 pounds * 2.5 turns/minute = 33,929 ft-lbs/min.

Watt later rounded this down to 33,000 ft-lbs/minute and the number has been in use ever since.

This issue's puzzler:

Concrete and cement are accepted today as universal building materials. But the type of concrete which we use today has only been in general use for about 150 years. Before that the motar which was used was produced from limestone (CaCO3) by heating the limestone in a kiln to produce lime(CaO)

CaCo3 + heat --> CaO + CO2

The lime was then "slaked" with water.

CaO + H2O --> Ca(OH)2

Sand and more water, to produce a workable paste, was added to the slaked lime. The mortar was used for building brick walls and other structures. The brick buildings in Philadelphia were built with this type of mortar. The mortar would dry to produce the hard material which we see between the bricks.

Ca(OH)2 + CO2 --> CaCO3 + H2O

As shown in the above chemical balance, in contact with air the mortar would chemically change back to limestone by reacting with the CO2 in the air.

The mortar had two major drawbacks. Since it hardened only in contact with air, it was very possible that the interior of a wall would not set properly or only over a very long period of time unless air was entrained in the mortar during mixing. It would also not dry under water. The mortar could not be used to make structures which would contain water or would be under water. Hydraulic cement was the term used for cement which would "dry" under water. But commercially available hydraulic cement would not be available in Europe until about 1823 and the United States after 1853.

This issues puzzler asks what is the difference between lime mortar and hydraulic cement? (Note the word dry in quotation marks is a hint.) If you know, send your answer to the newsletter editor.

If you would like to submit a question for use as a puzzler, contact the newsletter editor.

Section Survey

The section has added a survey to our web site (www.asme.org/sections/philadelphia/survey.html). By taking the survey, you can help the executive committee to continue our program development. Let us know what you like and dislike and also what you would like to add to our program.

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The survey only takes a few minutes to fill out. We have had some response to the survey but we need more to make the survey worthwhile.
Continuing Education

The section is considering organizing a number of continuing education courses. The first course will be a pressure vessel and/or piping course directed at the pharmaceutical industry. A large number of our members either work for one of the major pharmaceutical companies in the area or they work for an architect - engineer with pharmaceutical projects. The course would cover the ASME code, emphasizing the application of the code to the sterile design requirements of the pharmaceutical industry.

The second course would cover the subject of mechatronics. The course would cover the design of integrated mechanical and electronic systems which work together to control the machine. If you want more information on mechatronics, an interesting web site is located at http://www.iee.org/OnComms/pn/mechatronics.

If you are interested in either of these courses, contact a section officer.

Directions to the Battleship New Jersey

From South in NJ
Take I295 North or Rte 55 North to Rte 42 North. Exit 42 North on to I676 North. Take I676 North to Mickle Blvd exit. Follow directions "From Mickle Blvd."

From North in NJ
Take NJ Turnpike South to Exit 4. After exit take Rte 73 North approximately a mile and exit on to I295 South. Take I295 South to the next exit - Rte 70 West. Follow Rte 70 West and signs for Benjamin Franklin Bridge on to Rte 30 West (Admiral Wilson Blvd.) Follow Rte 30 West to Mickle Blvd exit (Before Benjamin Franklin Bridge). Follow directions "From Mickle Blvd."

From Walt Whitman Bridge
Take I95 or I76 East to Walt Whitman Bridge. Exit Walt Whitman Bridge at first ramp follow signs to I676 North. Take I676 North to Mickle Blvd. Exit. Follow directions "From Mickle Blvd."

From Benjamin Franklin Bridge 		  Take I676 South to Mickle Blvd exit. Follow directions "From Mickle Blvd."

From Mickle Blvd
Take Mickle Blvd. East toward the river. (Mickle Blvd becomes known as Martin Luther King Blvd.) Follow until you come to break in the median where there is a "Welcome to Camden County, Proud Home of USS New Jersey" sign. Turn left before the sign into the parking complex. Proceed straight into Lot # 1. Park as close to the Tweeter Center as possible. You will then walk toward the Tweeter center entrance and counter clockwise around the Tweeter Center to the waterfront, then south on the Promenade to the ship.

October 8 Section Meeting

Our speaker for the October meeting, Ernest L. Stadler, is Product Manager for Custom Bioprocess Equipment at B. Braun Biotech Incorporated, Sartorius Group, a manufacturer of fermentors, bioreactors, automation software / hardware, and other related bioprocess laboratory and custom large scale equipment. A member of ASME, ISPE, and PDA, Mr. Stadler is a registered Professional Engineer in PA and NJ, holding a BS in Mechanical Engineering from NJIT and has done graduate studies at Lehigh University in biotechnology. Mr. Stadler has broad based expertise in automation, process and mechanical design for a wide range of Bioprocess equipment having served the biotechnology industry for over 15 years. He is a frequent speaker, teacher, and workshop leader on the design and application of fermentors and bioreactors particularly relating to pharmaceutical and biotechnology process scale-up. He has authored articles and papers and was awarded the 1998 Article of the Year by Pharmaceutical Engineering Magazine, a publication of the ISPE.

Bioreactors are the most complex upstream bioprocess equipment item in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturing industries. They are the "factories" in which cultivation of cells to high densities permit the expression of useful proteins derived from recombinant DNA techniques. Drug companies that are in late stage phase III clinical trials or about to launch an FDA approved drug require facilities that can produce sufficient quantities of their product to meet market demands. A train of fermentors or bioreactors having increasing vessel size is necessary for large scale production of modern therapeutic proteins, viruses, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and a host of other biologically derived products in kilogram quantities. Scaling-up microbial fermentors and cell culture bioreactors can present challenges to the process and equipment designer. A thorough understanding of the inter-relationships between vessel geometry, aeration, agitation (mixing), oxygen transfer, and heat transfer are necessary to fully appreciate the scale-up methodology from laboratory to full-scale production.

This presentation will explore current trends in the industry regarding scale-up and discuss a few of the key correlations that contribute to a successful design. Photos of typical large scale equipment will be evaluated.

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Directions to Villanova University Take the Blue Route (Interstate 476) and exit at the Villanova exit. Proceed east on Lancaster Pike and cross Route 320. At the next light, turn right into the main Villanova parking lot.   Park anywhere in the lot. Cross Lancaster Pike at the light and continue up the steps toward the Villanova Chapel. Turn left at the chapel and continue for about 500 yards to the CEER Building (the new modern building on the left). The meeting is on the lower level of the building.

ASME Philadelphia Section
Wednesday September 18, 2002
Dinner and Tour of the Battleship New Jersey
Location: Camden, New Jersey waterfront - See page 3 for directions.
Time: Reception and Tour: 4:30PM to 6:30PM (Cash Bar)
Buffet Dinner: 6:30PM Dinner will be on the ship's fantail and will be under cover in case of rain.
Speakers: 7:30PM - Two speakers are scheduled: an executive from the Valero refinery who will discuss the current business climate for the petrochemical industry. and someone who will speak on the history of the battleship. Final speakers and exact subjects are still being determined.
Free Time: 8:30PM to 9:30PM
Cost: $40 for members and guests. $15 for students. (There are a limited number of students tickets available. If we exceed the number of available student seats, the section will decide whether to extend the subsidy to the remaining students.)
Reservations: Send a check (made out to "ASME Philadelphia Section") for the amount of your tickets to:

ASME Philadelphia Section
C/O John Wolf
223 West Summit Avenue
Haddonfield, NJ 08033


Your check will guarantee your reservation. We can not confirm your reservation without receiving your check. Please send your check in sufficient time so that we will receive it by August 30.

October Section Meeting
Tuesday, October 8, 2002
Bioreactor and Fermentor Design

Speaker: Ernest Stadler, Product Manager for Custom Bioprocess Equipment at B. Braun Biotech Incorporated
Reception: 5:30 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM $10 for members and guests. No charge for students.
Presentation: 6:30 PM
Location: Villanova University, CEER Building, Lower Level. See page 4 (above) for directions

Mr. Stadler will discuss the unique design requirements for these vessels which are an integral part of the pharmeceutical manufacturing process. See page 3 for more details.

Call Lana Vernati at Villanova University (610 519 4980) by October 4 to make your reservation. Note: This is the only notice for this meeting. There will be no confirming postcard in September.