NSF Award
9660207
*** 9660207 Japikse This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project to be carried out by Concepts ETI, Inc. seeks to enhance teaching effectiveness for the design process in mechanical engineering education. Effective teaching of design poses a problem for universities. Advanced design is an object-based discipline, whereas conventional courses are subject -based. The skill of the designer lies in applying knowledge and creating something which did not exist before. A designer must be able to judge the technical and economic worth of a design. Class problems, however, that test or reinforce knowledge have a unique solution. Design skills are required by industry because it is only by means of continuous design improvements that industries can remain globally competitive. The investigator, three other university partners and a 12-university advisory panel will cooperatively introduce realistic design features into engineering education via the development of an advanced product for environmentally friendly transportation applications. The manifest goal is to design a hybrid-electric gas turbine automotive power plant. The project creates an advanced design-based learning environment at a variety of universities; educational tools and methods not currently available; a template for similar programs for other disciplines; a viable engineering product of social and environmental value; and a bridge for education and design between universities and industry. This project proffers new computer based courseware design teaching tools for a variety of U.S. engineering universities in an historically strong, but currently weak, engineering field; namely, turbomachinery. The project will result in the development of a new hybrid electric gas turbine power plant with production in the commercialization phase of the project, and the approach lays the groundwork for a teaching model applicable to other design disciplines. ***
