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HarveyHensley12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
November 12, 2011
Question

Why is Mathcad not used more by chemical engineers?

  • November 12, 2011
  • 5 replies
  • 16501 views

I am a chemical engineer who has been using Mathcad for about 20 years, probably version 2 or 3 as the first. I use other specialized software for things like process simulation, fluid flow CFD etc., but when I need something special, Mathcad is the tool I use. In fact, once I learned Mathcad, I stopped using other programming languages like Fortran, or any of the Visual languages (C, Basic....). I've used Mathcad for a wide range of chemical engineering problems, from reactors, sprays, pipelines, optimization, stochastic simulation, dynamic models of reactors....and on.

So why, when I do a search for topics with chemical engineering and Mathcad, do I find so little. There are some professors who've posted some example problems, but very little else. Matlab is being used a lot by chemists and ChE's, but it can't compete with Mathcad, in my opinion, mainly because of the code look and the lack of symbolic solutions. I also don't see much interesting in the PTC Community regarding ChE.

PTC must must not be trying hard enough to sell into the ChE community? Are they concentrating too much on CAD design, i.e. mechanical engineering?

One suggestion to appeal to ChE's would be to incorporate an add-in that provided physical properties, including vapor-liquid-liquid equilibrium constants. There are a couple of packages that could be easily linked in to Mathcad if you have the C++ and Visual Studio knowhow. But that is only one suggestion. What ideas doe others have, and do you agree that there needs to be more attention to ChE as a market?

    5 replies

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    24-Ruby IV
    ValeryOchkov24-Ruby IV
    24-Ruby IV
    November 12, 2011

    I agree with you completely.
    A small example.
    We cannot work in new version of Mathcad - Mathcad with so-called chemical names of the variables:

    ChemName.png

    But I must say that we (chemical engineers, and not only) can criticize and blame for all packages. We must be able to work with different packages, using their strengths and avoiding weaknesses.

    Mathcad has many strengths and has a good chance to stay in the arsenal of chemical engineers.

    A
    abelniak1-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 14, 2011

    Hi, Harvey.

    I don't think it's so much of a case as "PTC must must not be trying hard enough to sell into the ChE community?". As a prior Mathcad Product Manager, I think we (PTC) would be happy with any sales, just like any software vendor would! Kidding aside - I think a subsection of engineers and techical professionals saw applicability for Mathcad sooner (or in greater numbers) than others did, and micro-communities sprung up around them. The volume of posts on Mathsoft's prior 'collab' was a testament to that. We ported over much of that content here.

    PlanetPTC Community, here, is a place for just that. So a solution to "So why, when I do a search for topics with chemical engineering and Mathcad, do I find so little. " is to get a sub-community up nd running, or add to one that is already started. And then help promote it - let other professionals like yourself know that this is a place to come and have like-minded discussions around chemcial engineering and how Mathcad plays role in your everyday work.

    Best of luck, and hope to see you here more!

    -Alan

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      aibelman1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      November 15, 2011

      Harvey,

      I asked a question in the same vein a number of years ago, namely why no Mathcad Chemical Engineering electronic library was ever produced. The answer was put succinctly by the old Collab Jean Giraud (jmg) that there was just too much to inlcude, although Samir Khan went some way to producing one but never quite finished it, making an admirable contribution of Chemical Engineering worksheets on the way.

      I think the answers to your question are a bit more subtle.

      There will always be a biase from the PTC contributors towards their own discipline background and I am guessing here as I have no information to prove it, that the present PTC set up is more non-Chemical Engineering disciplined. The likes of Samir who as a Chemical Engineer worked for a UK Mathcad distributor at the time, and indeed trained me in the use of Mathcad, have I guess disappeared from the PTC/distributor set-up.

      Also I believe a lot of the old Collabs who were Chemical Engineering orientated have left the scene, although a lot of what appeared under the umbrella of the Chemical Engineering forum was actually related directly to Chemistry with no relevance to the former.

      The simple answer may be that Chemical Engineering calculations only use the basics of Mathcad and therefore Chemical Engineers have not required the help. Indeed over the years a lot of my own work has used little of the resources of Mathcad, although this may have been due to the requirements that my cleints had to understand a pdf copy of my Mathcad calcs and even a simple use of the Mathcad programming formatting left them wondering what I was doing (from real experiences). So for me the simpler the calculation format the better.

      I see you are a new member of this forum since March 2011, but you have obviously been using Mathcad for a long time and yet you have never in all that time required any help from Mathsoft or PTC. If that is the case then does it not answer your own question?

      Danny

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      HarveyHensley12-AmethystAuthor
      12-Amethyst
      November 15, 2011

      Danny, thanks for your reply. Your analysis is pretty much in line with my suspicions regarding the corporate background and strengths. As Alan suggested, maybe some of us ChE's can help get the ball rolling.

      Your last observation about my not needing help with PTC in this forum is correct, but it does not answer my question. When I said I found little in searches for Che and Mathcad topics, I had in mind published papers on the web that mention Mathcad models, not discussions in PlanetPTC. I see a lot more papers that have Matlab models than Mathcad. Also, I retired from ConocoPhillips and Matlab is more in use there than Mathcad. That is a shame because I believe Mathcad is so much better. The natural documentation alone is reason to use Mathcad.

      Regarding the keeping it simple comments you made about others not understanding Mathcad. I can't imagine what other programming option you use for the complex calculations that is easier to understand than Mathcad. Yes, there are some functions in Mathcad that might need a few extra comments, but in large it is just math as you would find in any text. When I have symbolic solutions that extend beyond the page (some go for many pages) or large "programs" using the programming tools, I just hide those sections in the model and then describe what has taken place in the hidden section. This is no different than journal papers because not every equation and operation is shown there either. The same approach might be used to avoid showing the unknown functions.

      I started this discussion mainly with the hope of finding ways to make Mathcad either more attractive to ChE's or to find ways to better market it to ChE's. Satisfying that quest may be difficult in this forum because we who use it don't see any problems. But maybe you have some colleagues that can say what they don't like.

      Thanks again, and I hope we can make something happen.

      Harvey

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      aibelman1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      November 15, 2011

      Harvey,

      First let me apologise for the multiple entries of my last reply but my computer was telling me it was not successful so I continued to try and send the reply before I checked to find it had been successful - many times!

      I have no experience of Matlab or its capabilities so I cannot really comment on your observations in published papers, which I rarely need anyway since the clients of my present employer have most things tied up in specifications.

      You hit it on the nail for me when you said the "natural documentation alone is reason to use Mathcad".

      I can only re-iterate that unfortunately some clients I have encountered have been confused with simple Mathcad programming tools appearing in a calculation. As to symbolic solutions I rarely use them or even need them.

      As to expanding the use of Mathcad I am afraid I find the younger Chemical Engineers I presently work with have shown no interest at all. It is the case that all seven of my present younger colleagues (I am the eldest by far) have squarely rejected the use of Mathcad and prefer to use Excel. I have tried to introduce Mathcad but without any success. My present employer provides access to both Mathcad and Excel, but the use of the former is exclusively in Mechanical and Structural disciplines.

      Also being trained to use a peice of software is one thing but you need to be given time to develop the use of the software to suit your specific needs and this needs corporate funding not on the job client funding.

      I have had several mentored Chemical Engineering undergraduates with a previous employer go on to use Mathcad in their subsequent employment. I think the latter indicates that if you get them early enough, i.e. at university or work related mentoring, then your chances of influencing their future use of Mathcad is increased substantially - I am sure PTC already know this.

      Sorry to be a bit negative but I can only relay my experiences.

      Regards,

      Danny

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      HarveyHensley12-AmethystAuthor
      12-Amethyst
      November 17, 2011

      There have been several suggestions that we need to get a better presence in the universities. That may be true, but the competition might not be Excel and Matlab at that level. Aspen Tech has a high presence with Aspen Plus and Hysys academic licenses. I'm afraid that many young engineers learn the process simulation tools, or CFD tools, in college and think they will be the only tools they need. When they are on the job, they eventually find out that those tools can't solve all problems. They then try to fill in with whatever else they find. Like, Excel, it's everywhere. Beyond Excel, we have Mathcad and Matlab, primarily. At this point, I think the corporate culture and "standards" make the difference. Let me give an example.

      When I was working for Phillips Petroleum, the company acquired the Alaska holdings of Arco. Most of the Arco Alaska employees became Phillips employees. Several years later, I was able to do a search of the Mathcad licenses in Phillips. Most of the licenses were in Alaska offices because the Arco employees used Mathcad. Phillips had some users, like me, but it was obvious that there was a difference in use between the two companies. While I was still employed at Phillips, I don't recall there being a corporate decision to choose between Mathcad, Matlab or other similar programs. However, there was a corporate decision to make Aspen the preferred process simulation tool. Hysys remained in some areas due to existing models, but new growth went to Aspen. I don't know about Arco, but it's possible that Arco may have made a corporate decision in favor of Mathcad as a general computation tool, thus explaining why it was in high use there.

      The lesson is that selling high up the corporate ladder works. At first I didn't like the fact that some manager made a choice for my tools, but there is something for efficiency in maintenance, training, collaboration, standards.

      PTC already knows the selling points for Mathcad: quality control, documentation, peer review, automatic units conversion and checking, collaboration ease. I saw a video on the PTC site that compared the readability of a Mathcad equation to an Excel equation. That video needs to include a comparison of Mathcad, Matlab, Fortran and C++ programs that model the same computation. I would make the computation more than one equation...like maybe a reactor model. Then, PTC needs to take that video on the road to the "upper floors" of the corporate offices. If the sales person works in the appropriate Six Sigma or other quality lingo, the sale should be easy.

      How about this for a sales demo? Have a panel of engineers, each knowing how to program in at least one of the languages mentioned above. Give them each a copy of a program model written in their preferred language. Ask them to write down the equations in the program using traditional math notation. Show the Matlab, Excel, Fortran and C++ engineers madly working away. Pan to the Mathcad expert, who is merely handing back the Mathcad program, with the equations. (OK Danny, your peers may have had some problems with the special functions, like Rkadapt (,,,,), but the test could avoid those issues and still make a point.)

      PTC is undoubtedly trying to sell to corporate high management, but I haven't seen the side-by-side comparisons with Mathcad and anything other than Excel. I could have missed it...this is a big site.

      Excel has been mentioned as the major competition for Mathcad. My guess is that is true in companies that have not really selected an alternative to Excel. Matlab is probably big in companies that have chosen it at a corporate level, same with Mathcad. In major companies, I think many engineers just assume they are to use whatever is available and not ask for something better, particularly today. Thus, Excel is big because it comes in MS Office. Fortunately, I got started with Mathcad because I asked and Phillips provided. Sales grow slowly, one-at-a-time.

      I've thought of some other things that might help the product, but this is enough to chew on for now.

      H
      HarveyHensley12-AmethystAuthor
      12-Amethyst
      November 23, 2011

      To All,

      It appears that the discussion has ended. If you have been following this discussion, I invite you to go to my new blog Mathcad and Chemical Engineering: Old School and New School.

      Thanks to all those that participated.

      Harvey

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      aibelman1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      November 23, 2011

      Harvey,

      I have been unable to get time until now to add a last comment from me on this matter - I shall follow your blog from now on - but I feel I must add a response in defense of the Excel community.

      Having to revert to Excel over the past three or four years I have found several sources of very useful chemical engineering knowledge and freely available spreadsheets. There are a couple of websites in particular which I believe for some people and for specific disciplines will offer a more than adequate knowledge and free spreadsheet base.

      For Chemical Engineering the Cheresources.com forums provide plenty of technical know how and spreadsheets, and has stalwarts like Art Motemayor to guide the less experienced. The benefit of this website is that there is plenty of chemical engineering discussion going on as well as the request for spreadsheets - chemical engineering discussion was never a great strength of even the old Mathcad Collaboratory and certainly not of todays revamp.

      For other disciplines then MoreVision's exelcalcs.com website is proving very popular and John Doyle has admirably discussed the benefits of Excel over Mathcad in this forum. They also provide spreadsheets although most are related to civil, structural and mechanical engineering. The XLC add-in allowing formulae to be displayed can be all that is required by a lot of people at least for presentation and checking purposes - strong points for me personally - and of course strong points for also using Mathcad, but your example was spot on as I had never heard of "Rkadapt" until I started using Mathcad and the clients I have to deal with in contracting had no idea what this or similar Mathcad solvers are all about.

      You mentioned the furthering of AspenTech and their simulation software including HYSYS and FlareNet both of which I use on an irregular basis, and indeed it is the latter point which is the crux in respect of this type of software. As you rightly said too many chemical engineering graduates having been exposed to AspenTech simulation software at universities think it is all they need in the outside world, only to quickly be brought back to earth (in Process Contracting at least) when they are asked to do their first line sizing - usually using an Excel spreadsheet. Simulation software has it's place but it is not the tool for everyday chemical engineering if for no other reason that the cost of the software is in a different league to the likes of Excel - not sure about Mathcad.

      Good luck with blog,

      Danny

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