Torsten Fransson

An International Electronic and Interactive Teaching and Life-Long Learning Platform for Gas Turbine Technology in the 21st Century

An interactive learning platform which sets a new standard for electronic learning of gas turbine technology in a global life-long learning perspective is presented (Fig. I). The platform contains ...

Introduction of Project Based Learning for Designing a Heat and Power Plant into the Last Year Curriculum

Teaching the curriculum in heat and power technology in the classical way consists of giving lectures and exams to the students. A few laboratory exercises might highlight some details, but in general the students have problems with understanding the relevance of the lectures to real engineering subjects. The Division of Heat and Power Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden has started to give part of the curriculum as a project to design a complete heat and power plant. The objectives were to increase the interest and understanding of the heat and power technology by the students, encourage them to actively search for information in the subject on their own, work in teams and to make oral and written reports. Connecting external experts to the project gave the students a link to the industry. Several written and oral presentations were included in the project, which gave the students a good training in presentation techniques. The results show that the students had achieved a better knowledge of the investigated techniques than did the students at earlier years, when the course was given in the classical way. The disadvantages were mainly the extra amount of time needed for the teachers and the external experts for discussions with the students.Copyright

Computerized Educational Program in Turbomachinery

The recent astonishing progress in computerized sciences have given birth to multimedia, an electronic revolution sometimes compared to the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. The application of multimedia to education is one of the pre-eminent challenges of the future for academic and industrial institutions. It will certainly dramatically increase both teaching and learning capabilities.Turbomachines traditionally belong to a scientific field of high technology. Education in the field of turbomachinery is however today principally performed in a traditional way, via lectures, calculation exercises and laboratory experiments. The use of multimedia technology opens up possibilities, which did not previously exist, to perform systematic parameter studies and calculations in undergraduate education, so that the students are able to get a taste of the physical variables that govern the phenomena lectured.A “Multimedia Educational Package” within the sector Turbomachinery has been developed. This tool, available on CD-ROM and partially on Internet, mainly focuses at present on Thermodynamic Cycles, Turbomachines and Measuring Techniques in Thermal Engineering.Interactivity is the key concept of the program. The knowledge assimilated by the user is assessed via multiple choice questions with guided answers. Various aspects of the developed model are also integrated in a Turbomachinery Graduate Curriculum.Numerous tests have already been carried out during lectures, with a positive response from the students. Both students and teachers profoundly believe that, if combined with traditional education, this multimedia tool will enhance not only the knowledge of students, but also their interest in this field. As far as the authors are aware this is the most comprehensive multimedia educational package for turbomachines which presently exists. Figure 1 shows the introductory interface of this package and Fig. 2 an example of a simulation of velocity triangles in the “Turbomachines City”.Copyright

Gas Turbine Simulations in the Computerized Educational Program CompEduHPT: Three Case Studies

Gas Turbine Simulations in the Computerized Educational Program CompEduHPT: Three Case Studies

Podcasting the whiteboard : - A new way of teaching engineers

The education of engineers largely relies on traditional classroom teaching in which a teacher instructs a subject using a variety of techniques ranging from the traditional blackboard (nowadays also whiteboard), over overhead to computer-based presentations. In order to deepen knowledge and get hands-on experience, students are often given practical exercises or case studies to perform, be it individually or in group in the form of a seminar. It is experienced that black- (or white) board based lectures are having an advantage over overheads / slide shows as knowledge is built up instantaneously at a natural pace rather than confronting students with pages of prepared material. The present paper presents a new technique herein referred to as “podcasted whiteboard lectures” in which lectures are given in a traditional lecture hall setup but with having the teacher lecturing by means of an electronic whiteboard. A key advantage of this technique is that it can be recorded and made available to students afterwards, which is here done using podcasting. It is experienced that the technique is very efficient for maximizing the students’ learning experience as one is given the possibility to follow a subject ubiquitous and at preferred pace. Another advantage is that animations and simulations can be integrated right into the lecture and into the same medium used for lecturing. The technique is thereby equally applicable to campus as well as distance-based teaching.Copyright

Gas Turbine Simulations in the Computerized Educational Program CompEduHPT: Educational Aspects

An overview of computerized educational program (CompEduHPT) which includes several simulations was presented. These simulations provide an alternative way to learn, based on discovery and experien ...

An International, Electronic and Interactive Teaching and Life-Long Learning Platform for Gas Turbine Technology in the 21st Century

An interactive learning platform which sets a new standard for electronic learning of gas turbine technology in a global life-long learning perspective is presented (Fig. 1). The platform contains a theoretical section in the form of several pages for each chapter available, with a significant number of related interactive simulations, movies, animations, virtual laboratory exercises, virtual study visits and realistic case studies. A significant background information related to historical development in the field, a display of existing components, nomenclature, multi-lingual dictionary and keywords, as well as questions for self-assessment and exams, an electronic communication group and a database of the user’s “successes and failures”, enhance the learning process in a significant way.The program is intended as a platform for an international collaboration on learning heat and power technology. It can be used both in the classroom as well as for self-studies and is as such well adapted for both university and post-university learning, both on and off campus. Tools to facilitate the introduction of new material exist.It is thus hoped that teachers at different universities can join forces and in a non-competitive way introduce material which can be shared, instead of developing similar simulations with somewhat different interfaces.The long-term goal of the learning platform is of course that users world-wide will have the possibility to access the best teaching material available from any specialist, and that this material will contain supplementary pedagogical information which will enhance the learning both at a university and a post-university level.Copyright

Implementation of a Remote Pump Laboratory Exercise in the Training of Engineering Students

The use of laboratory exercises in the training of engineering students is of paramount importance to give the students the possibility to gain practical experience on real hardware and on real test data. Recent trends in the education of engineers at the Department of Energy Technology at KTH go towards an increasing share of distant-based education, which is put in place to educate students at different geographic locations, not only locally (such as for example with engineers in industry) but also internationally (i.e. with students in different countries). In order to provide the possibility to follow a course at a distance without compromising on learning objectives and learning quality, a number of remotely operated laboratory exercises have been developed and implemented in the engineering curriculum at the department. Among these, to mention the work carried out by Navarathna et al. [11] on a remotely operated linear cascade test facility. The present laboratory exercise is integrated in a course on turbomachinery and gives the students the possibility to interactively learn about the operation of pumps at various speeds, various mass flow rates, parallel operation and serial operation. Students access the laboratory exercise using a web-based interface, perform measurements and finally have test data sent to an initially specified email address for further analysis.Copyright