(263c) Teaching Chemical Engineering Fundamentals with Comsol Multiphysics®

COMSOL Multiphysics^® provides simulation and analysis of processes described by partial differential equations solved with finite element methods. It is used extensively in both industry and academia for fundamental and applied research in chemical engineering as well as many other disciplines. It is also widely used in teaching mathematical modeling courses at many universities. Although not yet widespread, it has recently been introduced in undergraduate courses on transport phenomena and reaction engineering to help teach fundamental chemical engineering principles. In this presentation we describe our experience using it for teaching in a unit operations laboratory course and a sophomore level chemical engineering thermodynamics course.

In our UO laboratory course we use simulations as pre-lab exercises to review fundamentals and prepare for the lab. Students can also use the simulations to help analyze and augment their experimental results. Fluid flow simulations illustrate differences between compressible and incompressible flow, as well as laminar and turbulent flow, and show that friction losses through pipes and fittings measured in the lab can be calculated from fundamental principles. A heat transfer simulation not only correctly predicts outlet temperatures of a heat exchanger, but also shows the velocity and temperature profiles throughout. Other interesting simulations include a PID temperature control process for a jacketed chemical reactor, carbon dioxide removal from an air stream in an absorption process, heat transfer in beverage bottles, and hazardous heat effects of exothermic reactions.

For these pre-lab exercises students normally follow a detailed tutorial to work directly with the software to make changes in the model parameters and rerun a pre-built model at various prescribed conditions to gain insight into the process studied. Recently, we introduced some pre-lab exercises that were delivered as “apps” over the internet via COMSOL Server^TM. The apps allow students to adjust model parameters and observe numerical and graphical results via a control panel for a virtual experiment without going into the COMSOL Multiphysics software. The results of a comparative study of the “tutorial” method and the “app” method with regard to student satisfaction and learning will be presented.

COMSOL introduced a thermodynamics feature with version 5.3a at the end of 2017. This feature allows calculation of thermodynamic properties and phase behavior for non-ideal chemical mixtures. We developed apps for generating and interpreting VLE phase diagrams, understanding the physical significance of activity coefficients, analyzing a pressure swing distillation process, and studying the factors that affect chemical reaction equilibrium and implemented them in our mixture thermodynamics course. Most apps were assigned as homework and contained quizzes that could be automatically graded and submitted via email directly from the apps from any internet browser. The chemical reaction equilibrium app was implemented as a virtual experiment that students used to complete a team project to design a recycle reactor/separator process. Our experience with the initial implementation of these apps will be discussed.