Conference Session

Contemporary Issues in Chemical Engineering Education

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Richard Zollars, Washington State University; Christopher Hundhausen, Washington State University; Pawan agrawal, Washington State University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

curriculumthat results in a large number of students either withdrawing or failing. In chemicalengineering this gateway class is the material and energy balance class. Statistics overthe past 24 years at Washington State University show that 35% of the students whoenroll in the material/energy balance class either fail, withdraw, or receive a grade lowerthan a “C”. A large majority of these (66%) never complete their chemical engineeringdegree. The students who fail to successfully complete the material/energy balance classshow a wide variety of academic abilities, as measured by SAT scores or high schoolGPA. However, the academic abilities of those students who fail to successfullycomplete the material/energy balance class and those who successfully

Conference Session

Chemical Engineering Education: Upperclass Years

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Richard Turton, West Virginia University; Joseph Shaeiwitz, West Virginia University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

covered in the lectureportion of the senior design course. Only a few of the basics of batch operations might becovered in an undergraduate curriculum; unsteady material and energy balances (Stoichiometryand Heat Transfer), design of batch reactors (Chemical Reaction Engineering) and control ofsimple batch operations such as tank filling, etc. (Process Control). To complement the coverageof batch operations and to familiarize students with additional concepts relating to batchoperations such as scheduling and intermediate storage, a short module in batch operation wasdeveloped for a senior design course.Integration of Batch Operations into the Existing Senior Design CurriculumThe senior design course at our University comprises two semesters. The

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

F. Carl Knopf, Louisiana State University; Kerry Dooley, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

tooperational data from the cogeneration gas turbine and HRSG, and students are asked todetermine reconciled values in Excel as, 2 ⎛ Measured Value − Reconciled Value ⎞ Minimize ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟ ⎝ Instrument Standard Deviation ⎠ Subject to : Material and Energy Balances with Reconciled Values = 0The first time this DR module was used (Spring 2006), the average time to solve was 10.4 hr.When the statement “the problem promoted your understanding of the topic” was scored on a 0-5scale an average of 4.3 was obtained. Utilizing student feedback, we now provide an Exceltemplate

Conference Session

Demonstration and Project Enhancements in Chemical Engineering Education

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Polly Piergiovanni, Lafayette College; J. Ronald Martin, Lafayette College

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

0 1.9 64.0We have had first year students do this lab for the past seven years. We wondered if studentsremembered the technique later, so we asked some questions of sophomore chemical engineeringstudents. During the semester, 38 students in the Material and Energy Balances class were givena homework problem from the textbook8 (problem 4.13, 3rd edition). In this problem, thestudents must perform the same type of analysis as the fermentation lab, finding a regressionequation for exponential data. The students were asked to use Excel to find the equation and alsoto plot the data on a piece of log-log paper. Surprisingly, most of the students had troublecreating the paper plot (but had no trouble with the Excel regression

Conference Session

Contemporary Issues in Chemical Engineering Education

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Milo Koretsky, Oregon State University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

paper describes theinstructional structure and design of a large sophomore level data analysis and statistics classbased on best educational practices. It is delivered to chemical, biological and environmentalengineers directly following the material and energy balance courses. The goal of the course is tohave students recognize that variation is inevitable, and teach them skills to quantify thevariation and make engineering decisions which account for it while still utilizing model basedproblem solving skills.The instructional design is based on constructivist and social constructivist models of learning. Aconstructivist perspective views learning as individually constructed based on the learner’s priorknowledge, interpretations, and

Conference Session

Chemical Engineering Education: Underclass Years

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Silverstein, University of Kentucky; Margot Vigeant, Bucknell University; Donald Visco, Tennessee Technological University; Donald Woods, McMaster University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

and detailed design; team structure and teamwork; project planning; written, oral, graphical, and interpersonal communications; use of software tools; discussion of societal and business issues. It also offers three required general engineering courses on applied mathematics and engineering analysis (31). - University of Western Ontario has an 8 credit Introductory Engineering Design and Innovation Studio and a 4 credit Programming Fundamentals for Engineers (48).Option 3This category features a common first-year curriculum, common engineering courses without ChEcontent, and a ChE course. The ChE courses include surveys of the profession, design courses, anda course in material and energy balances. - Southern

Conference Session

Chemical Engineering Education: Underclass Years

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lisa Bullard, North Carolina State University; Donald Visco, Tennessee Technological University; David Silverstein, University of Kentucky; Jason Keith, Michigan Technological University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

University of Pittsburgh68. For example, previously at WPI, four ChEcourses were taught per year (with two in the fall semester and two in the springsemester). Now in their “spiral curriculum” there are four half semester “levels” whereaspects of each course is taught in an integrated manner, and each level feeds into thenext level. Thus, the sophomore courses in material and energy balances, classicalthermodynamics, mixture thermodynamics, and staged separation processes are nowreplaced with the four levels: material balances and stoichiometry, McCabe-Thielemethods for binary distillation, property changes on mixing, and chemical reactionequilibrium.Survey ResultsIn order to identify the program characteristics which we hypothesize are important