(219f) Tutorial: SMART-CN Education Modules for Senior Undergraduate or Graduate Engineering Curriculum

Debalina Sengupta, Yinlun Huang, Thomas F. Edgar, Cliff I. Davidson, Mario R. Eden, Mahmoud M. El-Halwagi*

* corresponding author, el-halwagi@tamu.edu

Session: (Education Division) 04A00 Free Forum on Engineering Education: Junior and Senior Years

The Sustainable Manufacturing Advances in Research and Technology (SMART) project funded by National Science Foundation aims to bridge the gap between academic knowledge discovery and industrial technology innovation for sustainable manufacturing. The SMART project involves a multidisciplinary team which has created an interdisciplinary and international Research Coordination Network (RCN) through the joint effort among a number of leading academic laboratories, centers, non-government organizations, and major manufacturing industries.

Meeting the educational goals of the SMART CN has been achieved through the creation of coordination among member universities and developing online modules specific to sustainable manufacturing. These modules are highly structured classroom-classroom-ready materials for use by instructors at the undergraduate or graduate level. The modules can also be used by industrial entities aiming to further their knowledge in sustainable manufacturing through self-study.

The presentation will provide an overview of this educational component of the project with emphasis on the dissemination of modules supported by computer tools for incorporation into the engineering curriculum. These modules include topics like life cycle assessment, green design and engineering, green chemistry, process intensification, process integration, optimization, and process safety among the core module elements. Test-use data, classroom use experience and general student feedback will be shared. These can be adopted by chemical, mechanical, civil, environmental and other engineering disciplines. Extensive case studies demonstrating these concepts are also provided for classroom teaching, homework assignments and term projects. The modules already available through the CACHE website have been reviewed by corporate sustainability teams, as well as academic instructors.

Reference: http://cache.org/super-store; http://www.research.che.utexas.edu/susman/edu.html