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Ac 2007-879: Planning a Living-building Laboratory (building as a Laboratory) That Will Integrate with Engineering Technology Curriculum
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Durfee, Jason K. |
| Copyright Year | 2007 |
| Abstract | In the fall of 2005 the Engineering & Design Department at Eastern Washington University moved into a newly constructed building. During the early design stages provisions were made to allow students access to various types of data used in the operation of the building. The desire was that the building would be used by students as a Living Laboratory. Students would be able to see how the theory that was taught in their classes was put into practical use throughout the building. Courses taught in the department could use the actual data from the building in laboratory assignments. Core mechanical engineering courses such as thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and strength of materials would be able to use this data for student lab work. Electrical engineering students would be able to observe the digital control and feedback processes. Both disciplines would be able to collaborate in collecting operating data for the building and making predictions as to how they might be able to improve the efficiency of the operation. Modifications were made to the original design in order to provide for this new use of the building. These modifications included: making the HVAC/control room extra wide to provide access for students to observe equipment and take readings, exposing cable trays and ducting, instrumenting valves and pumps in order to obtain valve position and pump speed information, and leaving structural elements exposed to provide locations to mount strain gages to record the loads on the building’s structure. Although the provisions for installing all of the desired equipment were built into the final building, as the construction of the building progressed fiscal concerns caused a reduction in the number of Living-Building Laboratory components that were actually funded. This paper describes efforts that have been undertaken in order to obtain the necessary equipment, functionality and course objectives to complete the Living-Building Laboratory concept. Introduction to the Living-Building Laboratory Concept The idea of using the academic building as a laboratory is an easy concept to grasp. Students in the sciences (and really all disciplines) should be taught to examine the world around them; asking questions and seeking answers. Students majoring in technical disciplines should have a more personal connection with the technical details of building operations. Typical of many, our department saw ourselves purchasing educational laboratory demonstrators for such engineering processes as pipe flow, pump performance, heat exchanger operation, etc. All the while these same processes were taking place in real-time within the very building the students were in. Creating a method to access these actual processes that would allow the students to study them would take them from the realm of scaled-down, simplified educational models to the actual equipment they would be working with in industry. A few years ago when approval was granted for the construction of a new Computing & Engineering Building, faculty members of the Engineering & Design department at Eastern Washington University devoted their efforts to working with the architectural firm and modifying the building’s design to create access to the technical equipment located within the building. Additional instrumentation was also requested that would provide the complete picture of the daily operation of the building. Examples of these modifications include increased working area around flow handlers to allow student access, instrumentation of valves, pumps and fans to obtain valve positions, pump and fan speeds as well as temperature and pressure data. Various parts of the underlying structure were left accessible for the mounting of strain gages to obtain data on the changing loads experienced by the building throughout a day of use by students and from forces applied to the structure by external winds. Within the room that is the “Thermo-Fluids Laboratory” the cosmetic ceiling tiles were purposely omitted to allow students to view the components of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system as well as the various pipes involved in the water and vacuum systems installed in the building. With the ceiling tiles removed students would also be able to see the location of some of the sensors being used to gather the building data. All of this was done with the specific goal of using the building as a ‘living’ laboratory. As originally envisioned the data obtained from the building would be used in various courses in the Engineering & Technology curriculum. For example, students in Thermodynamics would be able to study the mixing of hot and cold air streams. Directly overhead in the Thermo-Fluids laboratory room is a large air mixing chamber that combines hot and cold air flows. The flow rate of the hot and cold air streams is controlled through a feedback circuit in order to maintain the desired temperature in the room. The bare minimum data that is used to run the building’s daily operation already takes readings of the incoming hot air temperature, the incoming cold air temperature, the incoming humidity level, and the outgoing mixed-air temperature. Fluid mechanics and thermodynamics students are taught about the conservation of mass principle using a control volume approach. They would be able to deduce that the sum of the massflow coming into the mixing chamber must equal the sum of the massflow leaving the mixing chamber. Or in equation form: ∑ ∑ = out in m m & & Eqn. 1 Which for the mixing chamber can be written: mixed cold hot m m m & & & = + Eqn. 2 The thermodynamic students would be able to further analyze this using a conservation of energy approach. This would require an assumption that the process is adiabatic and has no work crossing the boundary of the control volume in which case the governing energy equation simplifies such that the sum of the product of enthalpy and massflow coming into the mixing chamber must equal the sum of the product of enthalpy and massflow leaving the mixing chamber. ∑ ∑ = out out in in h m h m & & Eqn. 3 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://peer.asee.org/planning-a-living-building-laboratory-building-as-a-laboratory-that-will-integrate-with-engineering-technology-curriculum.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.icee.usm.edu/ICEE/conferences/asee2007/papers/879_PLANNING_A_LIVING_BUILDING_LABORATORY__B.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
