Conference Session

ChE: Innovation to Improve Student Learning

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jason Keith, Michigan Technological University; Michael Miller, Michigan Technological University; Kirk Opella, Michigan Technological University; Julia King, Michigan Technological University; Jay Meldrum, Michigan Technological University; Chris Green, Michigan Technological University; Geoff Gwaltney, Michigan Technological University; Scott Bradley, Michigan Technological University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

energy research and development.Furthermore, within the State of Michigan there has been increased emphasis on fuel cellapplications to motor vehicles. To prepare our students to create the future, faculty andstaff at MTU have developed a wide range of interdisciplinary courses and projects inalternative energy.After describing the structure of the MTU enterprise program, the AFE enterprise and itsprojects will be presented. This program allows for a unique, multidisciplinaryintegration of research into teaching. Following this will be a description of the electivecourse, laboratory, and focused research projects.The MTU Enterprise ProgramMTU students can pursue a minor or concentration (curriculum shown in Table 1 withelective modules listed in

Conference Session

ChE: Innovation to Improve Student Learning

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

C. Stewart Slater, Rowan University; Mariano Savelski, Rowan University; Robert Hesketh, Rowan University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

EPA originally defined green engineering as the design, commercialization and use Page 11.150.2of processes and products that are feasible and economical while minimizing the generation ofpollution at the source and also minimizing risk to human health and the environment [1]. Thedefinition of green engineering was more broadly defined in a recent conference (Sandestin,Florida, 2003) to transforming existing engineering disciplines and practices to those that lead tosustainability. Green engineering incorporates development and implementation of products,processes, and systems that meet technical and cost objectives while protecting human

Conference Session

ChE: Outreach Programs

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Laura Ford, University of Tulsa; Christi Patton Luks, University of Tulsa

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

, $75, and $50 for 2006. The students maycompete either individually or as a team, with no upper limit on the size of the team.The test circuit was designed and built by two University of Tulsa electrical engineering studentsas a project for one of their classes. Their circuit diagram is given in Figure 1, and a picture ofthe unit is given in Figure 2. The test circuit has an on/off switch and a green LED that indicatesthat the unit is on. This simple feature is very useful for determining that the unit is workingcorrectly. The students attach their equipment to the circuit with the alligator clips. The testcircuit contains a blue LED that is on when the circuit is completed through the alligator clipsand the contest entry. When thestudent

Conference Session

ChE: Curriculum Reform & Assessment

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

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

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

paradigm shift. Some will say that wehave not responded quickly enough to the changing profession, and this may be true. Others willblame ABET. However, the new criteria allow far more flexibility, but departments have beenslow to make changes. Still others will blame the university reward system, which does nothingto encourage senior faculty members to devote time to significant updates of classes they havetaught for years or to encourage anyone to write books that embrace the changing face ofchemical engineering. A case has been made for a major curriculum revolution in chemical engineering.1 The Page 11.1258.2argument will be made here that

Conference Session

ChE: Experimental Design & Error Analysis

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Stephanie Farrell, Rowan University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

. Page 11.677.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2006 Hands-on Experimental Error! Improving Students’ Understanding of Error AnalysisIntroductionAn understanding of error analysis is crucial for the scientist or engineer who must estimateuncertainties in experimental measurements and reduce them when necessary. Error analysis is avital part of any experiment; without appropriate error analysis, meaningful conclusions cannotbe drawn from the data. Unfortunately, as pointed out by Taylor 1, error analysis is oftenintroduced through handouts containing formulas which students are simply told to use in theirlaboratory reports. Students fail to grasp the underlying concepts and rationale and

Conference Session

ChE: Poster Session

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Keith Lodge, University of Minnesota-Duluth

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

perhaps a newdirection is a more apt description, of Process Control (formerly ChE 4401, now ChE 4402); thisis offered once a year in the spring semester. Typically, students take this course in their lastsemester; by this time, the novelty of life in the classroom is wearing a bit thin! For the mostpart, the course has roughly followed the first ten chapters of “Chemical Process Control”1. It is now easy to obtain inexpensive and reliable microcontrollers. In the spring of 2002, ourstudents2 first worked the Board of Education (BOE) from Parallax3; this is a convenient systemwith which to build circuits and to program the Basic Stamp, Parallax’s microcontroller. Ofcourse, Parallax is not the sole source of microcontrollers; however, the

Conference Session

ChE: Experimental Design & Error Analysis

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Milo Koretsky, Oregon State University; Shoichi Kimura, Oregon State University; Connelly Barnes, Oregon State University; Danielle Amatore, Oregon State University; Derek Meyers-Graham, Oregon State University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

determine when their results are good enough and the reactor is ready for production.Educational objectivesThe complete experimental design process is depicted in the flowchart shown in Figure 1. Thefirst step is to select a response/dependent variable (variables) that will provide informationabout the problem under study and the proposed measurement method for this response variable,including an understanding of the measurement system variability. The next step is to select theindependent variables/factors to be investigated in the experiment. After the dependent andindependent variables are selected, then an appropriate experimental design should be selectedthat will allow the experimental questions to be answered once the data is collected

Conference Session

ChE: Departmental Issues and Integrating Freshmen into the ChE Program

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Pedro Arce, Tennessee Technological University; Donald Visco, Tennessee Technological University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

Discipline-Specific NeedsAbstractIn many engineering curriculums, the first opportunity for students to become acquainted withtheir discipline is in the sophomore or junior years. While such an approach allows for generalfreshman and/or sophomore engineering classes, it creates other problems as well as missesseveral opportunities. At our university, we have designed a 1-credit class for first semesterfreshman enrolled in chemical engineering. This course, which was designed with much studentinput, includes a variety of areas such as: (1) time management, (2) departmental indoctrination,(3) meeting the faculty, (4) how do all the courses fit into the curriculum, (5) hands-onexperimentation, (6) what chemical engineers do in practice and (7) student

Conference Session

ChE: Curriculum Reform & Assessment

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jeffrey Froyd; Jean Layne, Texas A&M University; Lale Yurttas, Texas A&M University; David Ford, Texas A&M University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

the intentions and methods used Page 11.416.3in each course, department faculty members have a firmer grasp of the current curriculum: Whatdoes each course intend to accomplish? How are these intentions realized? With a clearer pictureof present reality, the department can engage in more reasoned dialogue about how to obtaindesired outcomes. Fourth, the faculty has begun to develop new materials, such as interlinkedcurriculum components (ICCs), to support specific areas of the renewed curriculum.Process Step No. 1: Developing Departmental OutcomesInstead of first asking which courses or which topics should be included in a revised

Conference Session

ChE: Outreach Programs

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sundararajan Madihally, Oklahoma State University; Eric Maase, Oklahoma State University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

biochemical/biomedicalengineering.1. Introduction. The declining number of students expressing an interest, or majoring, in engineering isone of the major problems facing the United States [1]. There is also decrease in the interestlevel in mathematics and sciences; in 1990, 73% of twelfth grades agreed with the statement“math is useful for solving problems” which decreased to 61% in 2000 [2]. In addition to lack ofinterest, there is also the problem of under-preparedness among US students in math and science[3]. To address these issues, few higher education institutions have initiated novel programswhere either high school teachers are retrained or students are exposed to science andengineering through summer outreach programs [4-7

Conference Session

ChE: Innovation in Existing Courses

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Barry Barkel, University of Michigan; Peter Woolf, University of Michigan

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

• Understanding of convergence, stability and response of systems • PID controllers and their tuning • Statistical process controlThe design task for the new course was to cover the above material adequately, within a15-week term, and to do so in a manner that that had flow and continuity. In addition,each section should relate in a logical way.To accommodate this material, we developed the course plan listed in Table 1. Incomparison to the more traditional course plan that we followed previously, this courserepresents a significant deviation, both in terms of content and emphasis. Page 11.1026.2 New Course Old

Conference Session

ChE: Innovation in Existing Courses

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Silverstein, University of Kentucky

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

atypical risks related to terrorism are there to chemical plants? ‚ Are current safeguards adequate? ‚ Who is responsible for protecting chemical plants and their communities from threats?A brief discussion ensues, with students led to conclude that the risks associated with terrorismare essentially the same as they would ordinarily need to consider. The key difference is that theinitiating events are extraordinary. Consequently, the approaches taken using risk analysis toaddress only issues of highest probabilities and/or greatest impact must consider these unlikelybut possible events. The same tools they had already studied in the broader context of plant andprocess safety were still applicable.1 The third question addresses an

Conference Session

ChE: Departmental Issues and Integrating Freshmen into the ChE Program

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Silverstein, University of Kentucky; Daina Briedis, Michigan State University; Kevin Dahm, Rowan University; Richard Zollars, Washington State University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

Engineering Division Forum 1.0 The first implementation of the Forum is accessible from the Forum link on the ChED Page 11.827.4website, http://www.asee-ched.org/, as shown in Figure 1.Figure 1. Forum as viewed from within the ChED web site. The Forum is organized into broad groups, which are then broken down into areas.Currently, the groups include Announcements; ChE Division; Course Discussion; EducationalResearch, Theory and Methods; and New Faculty. The Announcements group is intended to serve more as a posting area than a discussionarea. The areas are broken down as follows ‚ Forum Announcements: Describes changes and

Conference Session

ChE: Innovation in the Laboratory

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Brian Lefebvre, Rowan University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

Engineering Education, 2006 A Constructivist Experiment in Particle Settling and CentrifugationIntroductionParticle settling and centrifugation are related rate-based separation techniques. Rate-based,time-dependent separation processes are often difficult to teach in a traditional lecture format.1However, simple experiments on particle settling and centrifugation are hard to find.2 Toenhance student understanding of these concepts, a particle settling and centrifugation exercisecentered on constructivist learning theory was developed.Constructivism is a philosophical view on how we come to understand or know.3 Thisphilosophical view can be characterized in terms of three primary propositions.3 1

Conference Session

ChE: Departmental Issues and Integrating Freshmen into the ChE Program

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Deborah Follman, Purdue University; George Bodner, Purdue University; Mica Hutchison, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

detrimental to the relevance of engineering solutions tosociety as a whole. A future engineering workforce lacking a diversity of perspectives may alsobe ill equipped to recognize the needs of a diverse society. In attempts to better understand why the science, technology, engineering, andmathematics (STEM) fields are experiencing such a loss of able students, many researchers haveturned their focus to the choices, achievement, and interests of students in the fields. As a result,many studies have emerged demonstrating a clear link between students’ self-efficacy beliefsand their persistence,1-8 achievement,2, 8-13 and interest2, 9-13 in the fields. Introduced by Banduraas a part of his social cognitive theory, self-efficacy beliefs describe

Conference Session

ChE: Departmental Issues and Integrating Freshmen into the ChE Program

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Charles Coronella, University of Nevada-Reno

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

is in chemical engineering. Each of the FYE courses have severalcommon objectives: to develop written and oral communication skills; to familiarize studentswith the engineering design process through a hands-on semester-length project; to developteamwork skills; and to develop basic computer skills. At UNR, ChE 101 is a 3-credit course required in the first semester of the chemicalengineering curriculum. It has 3 weekly meetings: a 3-hour meeting on Monday afternoon; a 1-hour meeting Thursday morning, and a 1-hour seminar with all undergraduate chemicalengineering students on Friday. The course has beentaught for several years, more or less following the Table 1 Following is a list of coursetext by Solen and Harb5, and

Conference Session

ChE: Innovation in the Laboratory

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Edgar Clausen, University of Arkansas; William Penney, University of Arkansas

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

correlations found in the literature.Free Convection Heat Transfer from an Upward Facing Horizontal PlateFree convection heat transfer is encountered in many practical applications, including heattransfer from pipes, transmission lines, baseboard heaters and steam radiators. Correlations areavailable for predicting free convection heat transfer coefficients for many different geometries.One of the important geometries is the upward facing horizontal heated surface or plate, thesubject of this investigation. The overall objectives of this experiment were to: 1. Determine the experimental free convection heat transfer coefficient for the top surface of

Conference Session

ChE: Innovation in Existing Courses

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Richard Zollars, Washington State University; Jim Henry, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

anapproach can, however, be frustrating for students at the remote site if the equipmentmalfunctions. Page 11.872.2The process control class at Washington State University is taught in the first semester ofthe senior year. The class is typical of many ChE-based control classes. The courseobjectives state that the students should be able to: 1) analyze the dynamics of process operations 2) understand the dynamic response of various operations 3) understand PID controllers for process operations based on both theoretical and empirical process characterizationThe outcomes arising from the objectives outlined above are intended to partially satisfyABET

Conference Session

ChE: Innovation in Existing Courses

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Paul Golter, Washington State University; Bernard Van Wie, Washington State University; Jonathan Windsor, Washington State University; Gary Held, Washington State University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

, non-electronic flow meters, manometers, pressure transducers and temperature probes withsmall-scale readouts.IntroductionThere is a well known need to re-visit the way in which engineers are trained to better preparethe next generation of engineers for the challenges of our changing society. [1] This can be doneeither by adding more courses, and thus more years, to engineering curricula or by utilizingalternate pedagogical techniques that can simultaneously enhance learning of core concepts anddevelop traditionally neglected ‘soft’ skills such as good communication practices.Alternate pedagogies include cooperative, hands-on, active and problem-based learning. Usually these pedagogies are applied