Process plants · Infrastructure · Manufacturing
Engineering specifications, explained from the ground up.
What a material grade actually means. Why a pipe schedule matters. What a welder needs before striking an arc. Written for people who have just joined the industry and have to read a specification on Monday morning.
- Oil & Gas
- Petrochemical
- Pharmaceutical
- Infrastructure & Buildings
- Automotive
Pick your discipline
Each section is a learning path — start at the top and work down, or jump to the topic you need. Topics cross-link between disciplines where the work overlaps.
Process
What the plant is actually for. Unit operations, refinery and petrochemical routes, pharma manufacturing, and the documents every other discipline works from.
18 topics →Mechanical
Pipe materials and sizing, fittings, flanges, valves, gaskets and bolting, welding processes and NDT.
54 topics →Rotating Equipment
Pumps, compressors and their drivers, mechanical seals and flush plans, bearings and lubrication, vibration analysis and shaft alignment.
8 topics →Electrical
Hazardous area classification, Ex protection types, cable selection and sizing, earthing, motors and lighting.
17 topics →Civil & Structural
Soil investigation, foundations for equipment and pipe racks, concrete grades, rebar, structural steel and paving.
44 topics →Instrumentation & Control
Transmitters, pressure, temperature, flow and level measurement, control valves, 4–20 mA, P&ID reading and SIL.
20 topics →HSE
Risk assessment and the hierarchy of control, permits and isolation, working at height and lifting, occupational health, and emergency response.
9 topics →Automotive
Two halves of the same industry. How parts are made and proved — GD&T, forming, casting, joining and the IATF 16949 apparatus — and how the vehicle itself works, from engine cycles and transmissions to CAN networks, high voltage EV architecture, ADAS and functional safety.
67 topics →Pharmaceutical
The plant where the product has to be clean as well as correct. Cleanroom grades and the air that holds them, purified water and WFI, clean steam and sterilisation, hygienic piping and surface finish, cleaning validation, and the qualification record that proves all of it.
6 topics →Start here
The first topic in each discipline. No prior knowledge assumed.
What the plant actually does — the shape of a process
Every plant is built from the same short list of unit operations. How a refinery, a petrochemical complex and a pharmaceutical plant differ, and why the process engineer's decisions land on everyone else's desk.
Pipe materials — what the grade on the spec actually means
A106, A312, P11 — how to read a piping material grade, why carbon steel is the default, and what forces an upgrade to alloy or stainless.
Hazardous areas — zones, gas groups and Ex protection explained
Why a light fitting in a refinery costs ten times a normal one. Zones and divisions, gas groups, temperature classes, IP ratings, and how to read an Ex certification label.
Soil investigation and compaction — the tests behind the report
What a Proctor test actually establishes and why field density is meaningless without it, the difference between Standard and Modified, why optimum moisture content is a target rather than a maximum, what sabkha does to buried concrete, and how a compaction result gets flattered without anyone lying.
What a transmitter is, and why it sends 4–20 mA
How a field instrument turns a physical quantity into a number the control room can use, why the signal starts at 4 mA instead of zero, and how to pick a measurement principle.
Risk assessment and the hierarchy of control
The difference between a hazard and a risk, why PPE is last and what that actually means on site, how a job safety analysis differs from a site risk assessment, why a high near-miss reporting rate is a good sign, and what stop work authority costs the first time somebody uses it.
Engineering drawings and why tolerances exist
How a manufacturing drawing communicates a part — views, sections, the title block, and the one idea underneath all of it — no dimension means anything until it carries a tolerance.
Cleanrooms — grades, particle counts and the air that holds them
What an ISO 14644 class actually counts, how EU GMP grades A to D map onto it, why a cleanroom is defined at rest and in operation, and why the pressure cascade matters more than the filters.