Uma percepção dos engenheiros químicos em formação sobre a importância da Engenharia de Processos Assistida por Computador (CAPE)

Abstract

Chemical Engineering, also known as universal engineering due to its wide scope of action, has been driven by industry needs, which are dynamic, since its foundation. The so-called Industry 4.0 brought with it new demands and technologies, and consequently new requirements for chemical engineering professionals. The use of software is not only required by the industries, it is also an effective way to apply the concepts of the basic and professional cycle disciplines, since they become an important learning tool. Although chemical engineering courses in Brazil have common mandatory requirements, the course flowcharts have differences that imply the formation of the future engineer. Therefore, this work has as main objective to analyze the conjuncture of the computational software teaching to chemical engineering students in Brazilian federal universities, through the resolution of practical problems and descriptive research. A step-based methodology was developed. In the first stage, illustrative cases were used, classic chemical engineering problems that are impractical to perform without the assistance of a computer system. In the second stage, a research was carried out in federal teaching institutions of chemical engineering in Brazil, in order to know the students' perception about the use of software during graduation, its importance and contribution in the formation of the chemical engineer. From this approach it was possible to observe how the modeling and simulation of processes facilitate the resolution of the typical problems of the exercise of chemical engineering. The students' responses to the survey present an academic scenario that is still far from that which would be compatible with the current demands of the industrial market.