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SESSION 3666

Development of a VRML Application for Teaching Fluid Mechanics

Sunil Appanaboyina, Kendrick Aung

Department of Mechanical Engineering Lamar University, Beaumont, TX 77710

Abstract

Fluid mechanics is a core subject for Mechanical, Aerospace, Civil, and Chemical engineering disciplines. One of the main obstacles in teaching fluid mechanics to undergraduate students is the lack of visualization tools that enhance and improve learning process of the students. With the widespread availability of multi-media software and hardware tools, development and integration of 2- and 3-dimensional visualization tools to the undergraduate fluid curriculum becomes necessary. This paper discusses the development of a Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) application to be used in an undergraduate fluid mechanics course at Lamar University. Simple fluid flow problems such as fully developed flow in a pipe are solved by an application written in Java programming language. The solutions obtained are displayed in a VRML application that also provides user interaction. Users can change certain parameters of each problem within a given range, and the VRML application provides the solution of the problem with new parameters.

Nomenclature

H Half of the distance between plates (m) L Length of pipe (m) R0 Radius of pipe (m) R1 Radius of imaginary pipe (m) T Time (s) T0 Temperature of bottom plate or wall of pipe (K) T1 Temperature of top plate or center of pipe (K) U Velocity along x-axis (m/s) U1 Velocity of top plate (m/s) U2 Velocity of bottom plate (m/s)

Greek letters Dynamic viscosity (kg/ms) Thermal conductivity (W/mK)

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Appanaboyina, S., & Aung, K. (2004, June), Development Of A Vrml Application For Teaching Fluid Mechanics Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--13720