Chemical Process Modeling in Undergraduate Education
he tools that professional chemical engineers use for numerical problem solving have changed dramatically in recent years, with computational software now taking much of the drudgery out of complicated calculations once performed with calculators or slide-rules, and permitting physically realistic modeling not possible by other means.
An undergraduate education in chemical and biological engineering would be incomplete today without exposure to these workhorse tools, and at the same time, the tools permit the introduction of advanced concepts in modeling that were previously out of reach in an undergraduate curriculum.
But teaching these new tools to undergraduates presents many challenges. Ideally, students should be exposed to computational software early in their education to allow them to make use of the tools in subsequent courses.
At the same time, the software needs to be presented alongside chemical engineering concepts in order to demonstrate its relevance and engage students, as well as to avoid having the software become a “black box” that generates results in the absence of a thorough under-standing of how to solve particular problems.
New sophomores in the department have been required to take Computer Science 310, Problem Solving Using Computers, but found the course largely unsatisfactory because the tools introduced and the examples used were not particularly relevant to the chemical engineering curriculum. That left faculty in the department to introduce computational tools throughout the curriculum as the need arose. This approach tied the tools closely to the concepts being taught, but did not present the material in a systematic fashion. Students never gained a broad overview of tools and their applications, while instructors generally chose the simplest tool for the task at hand and devoted as little time as possible to introducing it, in order to minimize the distraction from the main subject of the course.
After extensive faculty discussion, the department decided to experiment with a course for sophomores that would provide a comprehensive introduction to the use of modern computational software for numerical problem solving while providing an integrative overview of the entire chemical engineering curriculum. With support from the College of Engineering through its COE 2010, Transforming Undergraduate Education initiative, Jim Rawlings set out to develop this course. He worked with faculty instructors for the later courses in the curriculum who identified the key modeling concepts to which they would like students entering their courses to be exposed early in their academic careers, and the course was structured to present one key concept per week. Lectures introduce these concepts and the computational tools required to address them, and students immediately begin to apply the tools in smaller discussion sections. By the end of this course, students have a set of tools that have been selected as most useful by the faculty in the later courses, and along the way, students have been introduced to a variety of key chemical engineering concepts that they will encounter later in the curriculum.
Technology is an essential component of this course. The College of Engineering has invested in classrooms with laptop projection capability and wireless Internet connections, and provides software licenses for student use. While most engineering undergraduates bring their own laptop computers to campus, the department loans laptops to those who don’t so that every student has a laptop in class. The course requires intensive problem solving in small groups to educate students in how to use advanced computational tools for engineering decision making in complex situations.
Two instructors, Jim Rawlings and Ross Swaney, have now offered the course on an experimental basis three times over the past two years, with very positive feedback from students as well as from instructors in other courses. Seven course modules have been developed by Jim Rawlings, Ross Swaney and Christos Maravelias. This year, undergraduate students who mastered the course the previous year were hired as leaders for the smaller discussion sections, with the professor in charge of the course also covering one discussion section on a rotating basis. By helping to integrate the entire curriculum and by involving senior students in discussions with the junior students, the department hopes to foster a learning community within the department in which using technology to solve complex engineering problems becomes an integral part of our students’ educational experience.
Given the success of the course to date, the faculty have now formalized it as CBE 255, Introduction to Chemical Process Modeling, and voted to require the course of all sophomores beginning this fall when Jennie Reed will teach it for the first time as a required course. Through the COE 2010 initiative, Jim Rawlings is coordinating with instructors in other departments in the college to introduce similar computational modeling courses tailored to their students’ needs, while sharing best practices across departments.
In the future, the course may be broken into two parts, with the first part taught to sophomores and the second part to juniors. In this way, students will find almost immediate use in their next semester courses of all the tools they have learned. In any case, we expect the new course to significantly improve the preparation of our undergraduates for careers in what is increasingly a computationally intensive field.
