Abstract:

Mixing plays an important role in many industries as well as in everyday life because it significantly modifies heat and/or mass transfer. Thus, it is customary to include courses that enable students to calculate the velocity field in many Engineering curricula at the undergraduate level. However, the cases studied are very limited in scope because of the mathematical complexities associated with this type of calculations. This has limited the experience for the students.

Specifically, the complexity of the differential equations describing velocity fields leads to solve steady-state, constant-property, one-dimensional problems - involving laminar flow - in the classroom; most of the textbooks include only problems of this type as well. Additionally, it has been common practice in the classroom not to ask the students to visualize the calculated velocity fields. Both of these drawbacks arise from the fact that only analytical solutions are studied and practiced (through problem-solving).

In this work, we report an ongoing project directed to using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), i.e., a powerful methodology based on the numerical solution of the differential equations, to produce digital educational resources for undergraduate students. By using a commercially-available computer code, the cases studied can be un-steady in nature, i.e., the variation of the velocity field with time is allowed and also turbulent flows (which are the rule, as opposed to laminar flows) can be considered. The powerful post-processing capabilities of the software allow presenting the results as: contour maps of velocity magnitude, vector maps of the velocity field, vorticity maps, and pressure maps, among others. Also, the computed fields may be produced in the form of videos which may be readily distributed through Internet.

In the paper, we present the development of various cases in detail and discuss ways of using them in the classroom as well as online.

Keywords:

Undergraduate, transport phenomena, engineering.