What do students need to learn

about transport phenomena?

John H. Lienhard V
Professor and Undergraduate Officer
Department of Mechanical Engineering
MIT
 Typical topics in UG heat transfer
• Essential physical principles
– Fourier’s law, energy conservation equations, flow/convective
phenomena, phase change, blackbody radiation, properties…
• Identification and formulation of problems
– What are the important thermal features of a particular
engineering system?
– How can we reduce them to engineering models?
• Methods of solving problems
– linear [resistance] networks, ODEs, Fourier series, FEM,
similarity solutions – often, a great deal of time goes here
• Common systems and applications
– Heat exchangers, electronics cooling, energy systems, food or
materials processing, …
Goals for next generation engineers
• NAE “Engineer of 2020” Reports (2004, 2005) [1,2]
– BS level degree as “pre-engineering”, with graduate level completion
– Teach the iterative process of design beginning in the 1st year
– Teach skills for life long learning in addition to today’s core knowledge
– Experiment with novel and innovative curricula
– Use case studies & include interdisciplinary topics at UG level
– Support research on engineering education

• Commission on the Skills of the American Work Force (2007) [3]

– Engineers of equal skill available at 1/6th the salary in other countries
– Commission suggests that US Industry should focus on innovation,
rather than routine work

“..employers the world over will be looking for the most competent
people…and will pay top dollar… . Those countries that produce the
most important new products and services can capture a premium in
world markets that will enable them to pay high wages to their citizens.”
 Career trends (MIT ME, values approximate)

Years Engineer Manager Student Other (MD,

past BS JD, etc.)
1 70% - 30% -
5 60% - 14% 26%
10 35% 30% - 35%
20 40% 35% - 25%
30 25% 45% - 30%

Source: Wolfe and Seering [4]

 Communications

Teamwork

Engineering reasoning

Engineering design process

System thinking

Manufacturing

Experimentation

Mechanics of solids

Heat transfer

Dynamics

Fluid mechanics

0 1 2 3 4 5
Other Consultants Frequency of Use
Managers Engineers

From: Wolfe & Seering [4] 0 = Never, 1 = Rarely, 2 = Occasionally, 3 = Regularly, 4 = Frequently, 5 = Pervasively
 What do ME students do with heat
transfer material after graduation?
• Most will not become specialists in heat and mass transfer
• Most will need a grasp of the basic phenomena
– Conceptual understanding the basic processes and laws
– Ability to formulate simple engineering models and to apply
“engineering reasoning” to thermal systems
• An ability to address novel situations is essential.
– Applications and systems change over time.
– New technologies require more assessment than already existing
technologies
• Most will only occasionally need detailed analytical tools or
techniques
 Today’s applications
• Energy systems have renewed importance
– Combustion/fossil energy & CO2 sequestration
– Energy storage systems (e.g., batteries for solar cells)
– Fuel cell systems: electrochemistry, membrane transport,
liquid/vapor/solid processes
– Efficiency of energy systems
• Electronics thermal management retains strong activity
• Micro/nanotechnology moving from research to practice
• Environmental issues

• Transport process are essential to worldwide quality of

life problems as well –water quality, desalination,
medical/pharma technologies, …
 Ancillary knowledge
• Energy systems may require understanding of mixtures,
chemical reactions, and electrochemical processes – in
gas, liquid, and/or solid phase.
• Nanoscale transport may require grounding in solid-state
physics and kinetic theory

• YET, thermodynamics coverage has been scaled back in

some programs – loss of “second thermo course”

• Required UG Physics rarely goes beyond mechanics

and E&M – no quantum, no solid state. Are the
traditional prerequisites to ME major are still optimal? [5]
 Adapting to curricular size
constraints
• Recent trend to integrate thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid
mechanics into single subject, often with a reduction in units.
– Ideally, synergies will improve depth of understanding
– Ideally, attention is driven toward what is fundamental and away from
less essential topics
– Ideally, students’ ability to do system level work is improved
– May alternatively overstuff subjects or omit basic topics!

• Given limited time, effectiveness of classroom contact is critical [6,7]

– “Information delivery” (derivations, miscellaneous facts, procedures) as
pre-lecture reading
– Lecture to provide framework, reinforce the big ideas, have interactive
Q/A, and for teaching “how to think about problems”
– Active learning
– Teaching theory in context of systems, rather than as abstraction
 ME Graduate Education
• The classroom needs in a PhD setting are usually driven by the
current research focus of the program in question.

• Master’s level education is more generic, and is an opportunity to go

from “pre-engineer” to “engineer”.

• Most programs have some core subjects that cover generic basics
(conduction, convection, radiation, etc) with a higher level of
mathematical sophistication.
• Fewer programs have graduate level subjects in thermal systems
design, modeling, or experimentation - although these topics are
covered in some types of thesis research.

• Many master’s students go directly to careers in engineering design

and product development, rather than research or PhD. Presence of
a substantial R&D activity in master’s program may fit both needs
 2020 report speaks of the
“technology explosion”

“Engineering education must avoid the

cliché of teaching more and more about
less and less, until it teaches everything
about nothing”

Ref. [1]
 References
1. National Academy of Engineering, The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in
the New Century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2004.
2. National Academy of Engineering, Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting
Engineering Education to the New Century. Washington, DC: The National
Academies Press, 2005.
3. National Center on Education and the Economy, Tough Choices for Tough Times,
Report of the new Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce.
Washington DC: National Center on Education and the Economy, 2007.
4. Kristen E. Wolfe, “Understanding the Careers of the Alumni of the MIT Mechanical
Engineering Department.” SB thesis, MIT, 2004. Supervised by Professor Warren
Seering.
5. R. Silbey et al., Report of the Task Force on the Undergraduate Educational
Commons. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 2006.
6. J.K. Vandiver, Recitation-based Teaching, MIT Faculty Newsletter, April 2007.
7. Morrison, Robert T. "The Lecture System in Teaching Science." Undergraduate
Education in Chemistry and Physics. Proceedings of the Chicago Conferences on
Liberal Education, No. 1. The College Center for Curricular Thought, The
University of Chicago. 1985, pp. 50-58.