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Main Menu Session 3430

Using Software with Visualization to Teach Heat Transfer Concepts

Robert J. Ribando, Timothy C. Scott, Larry G. Richards, Gerald W. O’Leary University of Virginia

Abstract

Over the past six years we have transformed our undergraduate heat transfer course from a strictly lecture format by adding a two-hour “studio” session held in a classroom equipped with a computer for each pair of students. Much of the studio work revolves around a set of locally developed, research-based numerical algorithms that solve in real time the ordinary and partial-differential equations describing heat and fluid flow. With the complete field solution available from the numerical routines, the software can provide a visually rich and highly interactive learning experience. This encourages the user to better investigate and understand the underlying physics. Additional studio exercises involving student-developed spreadsheets allow them to explore a wide range of input parameters - as a practicing engineer would in any good design study.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that practicing engineers support this approach since they are accustomed to using graphically-rich, commercial software and recognize that computers and software have taken over much of the mundane “number-crunching” that used to occupy many of an engineer’s working hours. Many undergraduate engineering students, especially the weaker ones, are oriented toward the routine solving of problems – particularly problems that are very similar to worked examples in the textbook and have a single “correct” answer (and exactly what computers can be trained to do better than they!). At the graduate level those students who study computational fluid dynamics (CFD) quickly learn “the purpose of computing is insight, not numbers,” but inculcating that idea in undergraduates takes much effort. The software we have developed and use in this course encourages all students to take a second look, to run cases and to notice the effects of parameters. The course instructor must be willing to change his or her mode of operation, by developing and assigning more open-ended and design problems and especially by including “concept” questions along with conventional problem solving in assessing student performance.

Introduction In recent years we have transformed our undergraduate heat transfer course from a typical “chalk-and-talk” lecture course to include what we call a “studio” session. The latter, a two-hour “hands-on” session held in a room provided with a computer for each pair of students, supplements the two lectures each week that are held in a room having a computer and projection system just for the instructor. Unlike the two other “hands-on” computer classrooms in our building, the one we use for the heat transfer studio sessions was deliberately designed with two seats per workstation so as to encourage cooperative work among small teams of students [1,2]. During these sessions the course instructor Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

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Ribando, R. (2002, June), Using Software With Visualization To Teach Heat Transfer Concepts Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10368