Fluids: Engineering School Modular Program for Fluid Mechanics

Dates

June 2000 — August 2003

Principal Investigator

Professor Chiang C. Mei (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)

Goal

Replace redundant courses on fluid mechanics in multiple departments with a modular, inter-disciplinary, interactive, individualized program.

Overview

Fluid Dynamics, the study of motion of liquids and gases and their interactions with other materials and objects, plays a central role in many branches of engineering and science. Knowledge of such motions is important for engineering design of land vehicles, ships and aircrafts, as well as many other mechanical and industrial processes. As a result, fluid mechanics courses are offered in almost every engineering department, resulting in redundancy and hindering interdisciplinary fertilization.

A group of faculty across the School of Engineering has developed a new teaching paradigm for fluid mechanics as a Web-based program at the first-year graduate level. The program consists of several modules representing important topics in fluid mechanics. These modules can be integrated to form coherent courses to suit the educational purpose of individual students in different departments. These courses can serve both as a preparation for deeper immersion in the students' own special fields and as an intellectual enrichment for life-long learning.

Modules include:

• Basic laws
• Potential flows
• Viscous flows
• Diffusion and Transport in Fluids
• Waves in fluids
• Rotating fluids

Building on the modules and variety of content that were being developed, our objective was to understand, develop and test methodologies for delivery within a learning environment. Some characteristics of this delivery were richness of customization, content, dynamic delivery, needs anticipation, and continual learning assessment.

Of broader significance to engineering education was to understand, develop and test methodologies for interactive custom and dynamic delivery of the modular material which would be rich in content. We aimed to develop methodologies to customize learning tools to the individual student according to the student's interests, preparation, skill levels, and learning styles. The assessment of these, and the delivery itself, were dynamically adjusted based on learning assessments which were part of the overall process.

"We expect that the program will be in a state of perpetual renewal and expansion, and will provide a life-long platform for interaction between students, alumni, colleagues in academia and industries, and MIT." —C.C. Mei

Project Output

Publications

Niewiadomska, K.M., "Knowledge Representation, Content Indexing and Effective Teaching of Fluid Mechanics using Web-Based Content," June 2002, SM Thesis, MIT.

Presentations

(Yue) Mini Presentation to Ocean Engineering graduate students at the VFRL lab on Feb 22, 2001

(Yue) Presentation to co-PI's of Fluid Mechanics project, iCampus program on Feb 26, 2001 and March 19, 2001.

Links

Fluid Mechanics Site

Module 1.63 Advanced Fluid Dynamics of the Environment

Module 1.138 Wave Propagation

Marine Hydrodynamics Module