Curtin Sarawak team wins top prize in Honeywell UniSim Design Challenge 2014

Miri – 14 August 2014 – Four fourth-year chemical engineering students of Curtin University, Sarawak Malaysia (Curtin Sarawak) emerged champions in the Honeywell UniSim Design Challenge 2014, a student competition organised by Honeywell and Student Competitions.

The team comprised Kristy Nyagang, 23; Aw Ying Yin, 23; Chen Wai Mun, 23; and Chang Chung Min, 24. They were supervised by lecturer of chemical engineering Dr. Mesfin Getu Woldetensay.

The Honeywell UniSim Design Challenge nurtures and promotes talent in the process manufacturing industry among students from higher learning institutions in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia.

It requires students to utilise the Honeywell UniSim® Design Suite software to design processes to solve critical plant business issues of their choice. Their submissions must demonstrate creativity and innovation, as well as detail the benefits to be derived from their solutions.

The software is used by industrial manufacturers worldwide to design, optimise and test manufacturing processes before they are implemented in a wide range of industrial facilities. It is also used to improve production and safety by training personnel offline to operate these processes.

The Curtin Sarawak team’s entry was entitled ‘Through UniSim design to improve the energy efficiency of a typical turbo-expander plant using enhanced natural gas liquid (NGL) recovery process.’

The prize-giving ceremony will be held during the regional Honeywell Users Group global conference in Queensland, Australia from 21 to 23 September 2014. Two of the students and their supervisor will be attending the conference and receiving the prize.

Honeywell is a global technology leader with business interests in aerospace, automation and control solutions, performance materials and technologies and transportation systems. Student Competitions is a website that list all the world’s most important student competitions, student conferences and other global opportunities dedicated to helping companies, universities and governments attract global talents through competitions.

The proud students (L – R) Chang, Kristy, Chen and Aw posing with Dr. Mesfin (middle).