(20a) Distributed Dynamic Simulation of Water Process Plants for Collaborative Learning

A distributed simulator for water purification plants is demonstrated. The simulator prototype is one of the modules of the PureWaterLab project. This project provides a portal for teaching water conservation and sustainability in manufacturing plants. Students and groups in different labs and also at different universities are able to collaborate in the same plant simulation. Plants are designed by selecting units from a palette, adding the units to a flowsheet, and piping the plant. Units may be local or remotely distributed over the Internet. XML text is used for messages between remote units for operating system- and language-independence. Teamwork, planning, communication skills are an important educational component in addition to teaching of unit operations, plant design and plant dynamics.