Developing Relevant and Practical Projects for a Senior Capstone Thermal Fluids Design Course

This paper starts with the description of the subject course from the Academic Register. itA capstone, project-oriented course in the thermal-fluids area of mechanical engineering that applies engineering techniques to the design of thermal/fluid processesand systems. Students work in teams on projects that involve design of piping systems, heat exchangers, thermodynamic cycles, and other thermal fluid system." It is a required course, taken mostly by graduating seniors, but sometimes by juniors. The prerequisites are two courses in Thermodynamics and a course in Heat Transfer Analysis and Design.Students have also completed a course in Fluid Mechanics. The subject school is on a trimester system with relatively intense 10 weeks per terms, rather than the more typical semester system of 15weeks per term, that is less intense, and can provide more opportunity for reflection. Whereas semester courses are typically defined in terms of credit hours, the courses at this trimester college are defined by three courses per trimester for a minimum of 36 full courses for graduation. The subject counts as one course. However, the five project format that will be described, with students working in teams, can be a reasonable fit for either academic calendar. The instructor reviews the successof each project after each term. Someare repeated with some modifications, while new projects may be inspired by current events, such as controversies over construction of new oil and gas pipelines. This paper describes the projects that were performed in the fall of 2015.