Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants
Project-Based Learning (PBL): An Effective Tool to Teach an Undergraduate CFD Course
Department
School of Engineering
College
Padnos College of Engineering and Computing
Date Range
2010-2011
Abstract
An undergraduate technical elective Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was developed. The course was designed to be a balance between theoretical foundation of the subject and hands-on experience. Project-Based Learning (PBL) was used as part of the course to provide training for a commercial CFD package. A set of projects was used in the PBL track to teach the package where the level of technical challenge was increased from one project to the following one. At the end of the PBL track, the students were asked to develop a full CFD study and use a simplified Design of Experiment (DOE) to study the aerodynamics of their own car. Details of the method are presented with samples from the students' work and their feedback. Results from the first offering of the courses showed that PBL is an effective tool to train the students for a commercial CFD package through a practice-to-learn approach. The increasing technical challenges through the PBL track increased the students' interest in the subject and enhanced the learning.
Conference Name
2011 ASEE Annual Conference
Conference Location
Vancouver, BC, Canada
ScholarWorks Citation
Mokhtar, Wael, "Project-Based Learning (PBL): An Effective Tool to Teach an Undergraduate CFD Course" (2010). Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants. 129.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/fsdg/129
