ChE 341: Fluid Mechanics

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Course #: CHE 341 (4 credits)

Course Title: Fluid Mechanics

Terms Offered: Winter

Prerequisites: Physics 140: General Physics I, Math 215: Calculus III, preceded or accompanied by CHE 230: Introduction to Material and Energy Balances, and Math 216: Introduction to Differential Equations

Textbooks/Required Materials: Fluid Mechanics for Chemical Engineers: with Microfluidics, CFD, and COMSOL Multiphysics 5 (3rd Edition) (Prentice Hall International Series in the Physical and Chemical Engineering Sciences). James O. Wilkes. ISBN-13: 978-0134712826

Instructor: Burns, Ziff

Cognizant Faculty: Burns, Kamcev, Liu, Min

Faculty Approval: 2022-08-24

CoE Bulletin Description:

Fluid Mechanics for chemical engineers.  Mass, momentum, and energy balance on static and flowing systems.  Laminar and turbulent flow in pipes, equipment, and porous media.  Advanced topics including  boundary layers, potential, and irrotational flows, non-Newtonian fluids, and microfluidic systems.

Course Topics: (number of hours in parentheses)

  1. Hydrostatics, acceleration, anda surface tension (5)
  2. Mass, energy, and momentum balances in flowing systems (7)
  3. Flow through pipes and chemical engineering equipment (8)
  4. Differential equations of fluid flow with both analytical and numerical solutions (10)
  5. Advanced topics including turbulent flow, non-Newtonian fluids, microfluidics (10)

Course Structure/Schedule: Lecture 3 per week @ 1 hour; Discussion: 1 per week @ 1 hour

Course Objectives: Links shown in brackets are to course outcomes that satisfy these objectives. 

  1. Provide students with a lasting and solid understanding of fluid mechanics. [a-h]
  2. Effectively teach fundamental concepts in fluid mechanics, including mass, energy, and momentum balances. [b]
  3. Teach students how to properly set up and solve fluid mechanics problems either analytically and numerically. [b-h]
  4. Introduce students to chemical engineering processes and equipment where fluid flow is involved. [d]
  5. Teach students how to apply fundamental concepts to advance topics in fluid mechanics.

Course Outcomes: Links shown in brackets are to ABET student outcomes 1-7

A. Knowledge of fundamental concepts in fluid statics including density, viscosity, pressure as a function of depth, acceleration variation, and surface tension. [1]

B. Ability to apply mass, energy, and momentum balances to fluid flow problems including Bernoulli’s equation, pump calculations, pipe flow (no viscosity), and linear/angular momentum. [1]

C. Ability to analyze fluid flow in chemical engineering equipment. including flow in piping networks, fluid drag on particles, and packed/fluidized beds [1,2,7]

D. Ability to set up the differential equations of fluid mechanics leading to the Navier-Stokes equations, and use them to solve fluid flow problems both analytically and numerically, as well as using existing CFD software packages. [1]

E. Understand applications of fundamental fluid mechanics to more advanced situations including boundary layer flows, stream function, inviscid/irrotational flows, non-Newtonian fluids, and microfluidic systems. [1].

Assessment Tools: Links shown in brackets are to course outcomes.

  1. Topic, unit, cross-unit, and cumulative quizzes administered through Canvas, each allowing multiple attempts [a-e]