THERMAL SCIENCE CAPSTONE PROJECTS IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

It is perceived that the majority of capstone projects for senior mechanical engineering students usually deals with designs that do not include issues related to thermal sciences; i.e., thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid mechanics. This may lead students to falsely think that the thermal sciences are usually not critical in practical designs since the capstone course is supposed to mimic actual engineering designs in the industry. The thinking that thermal issues are incidental is dangerous since vital industries - oil, electronics, power generation and conversion and cryogenics, to name but a few - rely heavily on thermal design. Actually one of the biggest current challenges is energy- its sources and conservation, which feeds into any kind of sustainable design. Lack of thermal projects in capstone courses also may prevent interested students from making thermal sciences their focal area and future career. The relatively low number of thermal science projects in capstone courses may be due to the fact that the instructors assigned to teach these courses are specialists in other areas of mechanical engineering. This paper explores these issues through surveying capstone projects in a number of universities. It probes capstone-teaching faculty and reflects on their attitudes toward thermal-science projects. The paper attempts to determine if there is a lack of thermalscience projects in capstone courses and if so what the reasons are. A third purpose of the paper was to probe the feelings of non-thermal faculty teaching capstone towards thermal projects, and whether or under what conditions they would be willing to offer more thermal design projects in the future. The paper also poses a few general questions regarding the role of thermal sciences in capstone design and suggests a strategic way for implementing more thermal science capstone projects.