Energy Engineering: Development Of A New Senior Elective Course

Energy engineering is a multi-disciplinary course encompassing thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, engineering economics, energy conversion and conservation, and pollutant emissions. This paper describes the development of an undergraduate elective course, energy engineering, in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Lamar University. Both conventional and alternative energy resources are covered in the course. Design aspects of energy conversion devices such as gas turbines and photovoltaic cells and contemporary topics such as distributed power generation, Combined Heat and Power (CHP), and environmental impacts caused by energy generation and consumption are introduced in the course. The paper provides the contents of the course in details: textbooks, reference materials, course topics, web resources, computational tools, exams, and group projects. The results of the course outcome assessment based on student surveys are also provided.