(581e) Encouraging Information Transfer With a Pre-Capstone Design Project

A common issue in our curriculum is information transfer, the ability to apply knowledge from one context into another. While efforts are made in individual courses to explicitly consider the connections between theories in the chemical engineering core (thermodynamics, transport, kinetics, and controls), there is significant resistance from students to apply skills they learned in previous courses in the context of their current courses. In one effort to improve information transfer, we have developed a month-long project that spans three courses – heat and mass transfer, reaction kinetics, and controls and safety – that puts students in teams across the courses to analyze a recent incident in the chemical process industry and redesign the unit(s) that failed. Each course instructor requires a specialized statement, aligned with their course, that analyzes the case study and defends their design. In the spring of 2013, students studied the T2 Laboratories, Inc. incident and suggested improvements to the heat exchanger, control scheme, and safety devices that would prevent the conditions that lead to the explosion. We share here how the project is approached across the core courses, the logistics of assembling the teams, and the assignments specific to each course.