BYOE: An Evaporative Cooler with Virtual Connectivity
- Conference
- Location
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Virtual Conference
- Publication Date
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July 26, 2021
- Start Date
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July 26, 2021
- End Date
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July 19, 2022
- Conference Session
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Bring Your Own Experiment: Experimentation and Laboratory-oriented Studies
- Tagged Division
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Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies
- Page Count
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18
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--36776
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/36776
- Download Count
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495
Paper Authors
Ahmet Can Sabuncu
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
orcid.org/0000-0001-7905-421X
Dr. Sabuncu holds a Ph. D. in Aerospace Engineering from Old Dominion University. Dr. Sabuncu’s professional interests spans from engineering education research, history of science and engineering, thermo-fluids engineering, and microfluidic technology. Dr. Sabuncu is eager to discover next generation workforce skills and to educate next generation of engineers who will carry industry 4.0 forward considering the needs of the global world.
John M. Sullivan Jr Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Professor John Sullivan joined WPI in 1987. He has had continuous external research funding from 1988 thru 2013. He has graduated (and supported) more than 75 MS and PhD graduate students. He has served as the ME Department Head and in 2012 was elected Secretary of the Faculty through 2015. Prof. Sullivan has always maintained a full teaching load. He strongly supports the WPI project-based undergraduate philosophy.
Kerri Anne Thornton Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Kerri Thornton is in the Class of 2024 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. She has not yet declared a major but is interested in pursuing engineering.
Maqsood Ali Mughal Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Maqsood Ali Mughal was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 1986. He received a B.S. degree in Electronic Engineering in 2008 from Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, and the M.S. degrees in Engineering Management and Environmental Sciences in 2010 and 2014 from Arkansas State University (A-State), Jonesboro. He then received his Ph.D. degree in Environmental Sciences at A-State Optoelectronic Materials Research Laboratory (OMRL)-College of Engineering with doctoral research focusing upon synthesis of thin film semiconductor materials for photovoltaic applications.
His research interests revolves around investigating next-generation materials (sulfides, chalcogenides, metal oxides) for use as solar cell materials to reduce the cost and toxicity, while increasing energy conversion efficiency. I am also interested in exploring possibility of using these materials for aerospace, biomedical, and other applications. In addition, I have recently been fascinated by the emergence of 3D printed electronics for wide range of applications and have been building drones for environmental use as well as launching high altitude balloons for collecting atmospheric data and measuring environmental pollution at different atmospheric levels.
Jan 2015, Dr. Mughal joined the Electrical Engineering Department at A-State as a faculty and worked for about an year before joining Fitchburg State University as an Assistant Professor of Electronics Engineering Technology program. In 2018, he joined Worcester Polytechnic Institute as an Assistant Professor.
Dr. Mughal was a recipient of Best Graduate Student Award for the ASU College of Engineering in 2010. In the same year, he received the LRCSI Ray Echols Scholarship, while; he was also a Student Entertainment Chairmen for the American Society for Quality (ASQ)-Northeast Arkansas, Section 1415NEA Student Branch (ASU). He has presented his work in more than 25 conferences including prestigious conferences like IEEE PVSC, TechConnect, EMC, etc. all over United States of America. He won 2 first prize awards for oral presentations, both at the Arkansas Academy of Science (AAS) in 2011 and 2012. He has several publications (both conference proceedings and journal) related to his research on electrodeposition of semiconductor materials for solar energy application.
He is also a professional member of IEEE, NSPE, IAENG, etc. and review papers for SolarEnergy, The European Physical Journal Applied Physics (EDP Sciences), and IEEE Industrial Application Society.
Abstract
One of the challenges in online education is enabling experimentation and laboratory-oriented coursework in an online environment. In this Bring Your Own Experiment session, we introduce an experimental setup that enables remote-learning students to gain thermodynamics-related technical skills. We use a setup that has an evaporative cooler to teach these skills. The setup incorporates a clear polycarbonate tubing that houses an evaporative cooler pad, an axial fan that continuously blows air onto the pad, and sensors to measure thermodynamic properties upstream and the downstream of the pad. The evaporative pad is kept wet by maintaining a continuous perfusion of water via a peristaltic pump. Sensors include temperature and humidity sensors. The sensors are connected to a microcontroller that has a Wi-Fi connectivity. All sensor data and a camera feed, which shows the experimental setup, are fed into a cloud storage using Internet of Things technology while the experimental setup is kept at our institution. Basically, with this apparatus, the data flows from the microcontroller to a Google sheet, and students remotely access this data. The remote students calculate the efficiency of the evaporative cooler and find the efficiency for the given volumetric flow rate and evaporative pad setup. This experiment is conducted as a part of a junior-level engineering experimentation course in a technological university.
The deliverable of this experiment is a short report that requires the students to obtain the learning objectives associated with, • the use of a psychrometric chart to find the wet bulb temperature, and • the components associated with calculating the cooling efficiency,
We implemented this experimental setup as one of the possible student laboratory exercise in an engineering experimentation course. We had nine students complete this optional assignment in a class of 90 students. We measured student engagement with a survey and analyzed student work. Students liked the mode of data acquisition and student success was high. We believe this methodology is particularly important when delivering experimentation remotely, including our current pandemic situation.
Sabuncu, A. C., & Sullivan, J. M., & Thornton, K. A., & Mughal, M. A. (2021, July), BYOE: An Evaporative Cooler with Virtual Connectivity Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--36776
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