(429k) A Joint Chemical and Mechanical Heat Exchanger Project, Trying to Emulate Industrial Experiences

Creating â??real worldâ? experiences in the classroom can be challenging. To do this in heat transfer, we developed a project that required students from different courses and different majors to work together. The heat exchanger design project was given to the chemical engineering students, whom must design a shell and tube heat exchanger, but they must also hire mechanical engineering consulting firms to design more efficient and compact heat exchangers. Each chemical engineering group was paired with two mechanical engineering groups. The meeting consisted of the clients presenting their problem to both of the consultant firms followed by a short one on one meeting with each firm. Following this, all communication was to be conducted via technical memo, including a progress report containing preliminary designs. The students then presented to everyone in both courses and graded the presentations.

This project sought to mimic the interactions of chemical and mechanical engineers in the design of a heat exchanger. Mechanical engineering students cover heat exchangers in great detail and learn about compact heat exchanger designs whereas chemical engineering students are more interested in the overall operation of the system and are taught the m ore classical heat exchangers. Many times in industry, chemical engineers will calculate the overall heat transfer coefficient times the area of heat exchange (UA) and then pass this information on to a mechanical engineer with other design constraints.

Surveys were conducted to determine the studentsâ?? perspectives on the project, skills gained, and attitudes towards the other engineering discipline. Here we present the project details, our perspectives of the project, outcomes, studentsâ?? perspectives, and our revisions going forward.