(131d) Integration of Cfd into the Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Curriculum

The educational benefits associated with integrating computer-assisted learning and simulation technology into undergraduate engineering courses are great. Although computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has revolutionized research and design, its incorporation into the teaching of undergraduate transport phenomena has been limited. This lack of penetration of CFD into the undergraduate curriculum is due primarily to a deficiency of faculty with training in CFD, the lack of knowledge by faculty of the educational CFD software tools available, and the start up time associated with developing educational CFD materials. This presentation will share success stories on how various professors have seamlessly incorporated CFD into their undergraduate transport phenomena courses with very minimal in-class time required. In addition, the presenter will share her own experiences applying CFD into the first undergraduate transport course at the University of Florida (UF) using the educational software code FlowLab (ANSYS). FlowLab tutorials and CFD problem sets/solutions developed at the University of Florida will be disseminated to the session participants. Finally, the results of assessments used to determine the effectiveness of the addition of CFD to the UF undergraduate transport course will be discussed.