(1188)COMPUTER SIMULATION OF PHYSICAL EXPERIMENTS AS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR TEACHING IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

摘要

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)software provides chemical engineering students a virtual laboratory in which they can simulate any process involving mass, energy or momentum transfer. In this work we have developed a 2D model with fluid-thermal interaction, solving the full Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the general heat transfer equations. As an example, we have studied a shelland- tube heat exchanger, where a hot fluid enters into the shell and the cooling fluid flows through the tubes. Two tube layout , square and rotated square patterns, have been compared. With this model the chemical engineering students gain an insight into the transport phenomena going on inside the complex industrial scale equipment. The use of this virtual laboratory also develops autonomous learning habits and the student's self-reflection, since the computer experiments allow students to design easily their own experiments (i.e. study the influence of variables and design parameters). This fact increases the pedagogical value of the tool proposed.