SOP-3 INTERDISCIPLINARY FIELD & ENGINEERING BLENDS
ENERGY & RESOURCES AUDITS “Self inflicted” Internal Assessments & Field trips (a.k.a. owned infrastructure Search within/capacity planning exercises, endless)
Search Inside! The case of [existing] brick and mortar and/or large& small infrastructure schools ! No new facilities needed. Online schools cannot do this stunt!
We all know field trips are great. Say, I would think that a visit to one of Evapco's testing facilities, if they are open to students, would undoubtedly be a spectacular experience to supplement school learning with real-scale thermal engineering studies and projects exposure. Pasting a sample report link below, one of Kurt's papers - awesome!
I would think that a field trip to the Research Center in Taneytown would be a terrific activity. I guess some closer site would do somewhat as well.
However field trips may not always be possible or available. If you can't make it to Taneytown or some other closer testing facility, I may also suggest take a look at your school's actual/existing HVAC infrastructure, id est capacity planning as both self-assessment and helping school. It may offer opportunities for rich, full-scale learning. Also plenty of raw actual data available for elaboration. Terrific integration!
I’m sure real life student research may even “challenge” works of the “pros”:
http://engineeringfundamentals.com/IIR-Low-Charge-Ammonia-Testing-Evapcold.pdf
No need to buy equipment. Just look around around the corner: cooling towers, HVAC compressors, water supply, cold chain unit processes/conservation measure/temp/airflows, humidity control, kitchen ventilation, hazardous lab standards, shower room water saving measures , boiler water chemistry, swimming pool fuel consumption/chemistry/temp, auditorium acoustics/HVAC specs, nearby critical infrastructure. A kind of 24/7/366 integral facility(ies)”self-inflicted” audits which may detect wastage, savings opportunities and of course learning experiences almost identical to actual workplace practice(much better as you own or are responsible or able to follow continuing measurements closely, as desired versus “no one knows what happened” forensics)
Tasks can range from simple cold chain evaporator performance examination all the way to data center thermal balances. Right from the source authoritative raw data!
Example # 1: Cold chain infrastructure Capacity Planning (Energy Audit/Energy & $ Savings)
Out of about 50 years of Ashrae Journals probably the best [to my taste] valuable/useful/practical content were York’s George Briley “one-page columns.” Standard industrial refrigeration handouts for all my mentees
Example # 2: Comfort HVAC Infrastructure Capacity Planning (Water use savings)
A trip to the usually rooftop cooling tower may provide tons of real life data for processing, mech, chem., env
Example # 3: 10 MGD PFA reverse osmosis self-assessment/”reverse engineering” drill
Just download Dupont’s W.A.V.E. software for free and get started!
Planned/recommended to-be-added-engineering-content; partial
1. Dry anaerobic digestion (food waste; farm/agribusiness waste; organic waste) (e.g. Chris Tasser,Carollo California; Kanadevia); e.g. 400, 800 tons/day (vs compost)
2. Radial deionization (Chris Tasser, Carollo California) (of some historic interest perhaps now)
3. 95+% recovery reverse osmosis (Dr. Arrowood/Dupont, Joe Wong, Brown & Caldwell California; Bruce Alderman; Kody Dupont CCRO; Mark Carroll ADM; others)
4. Granular activated sludge (John Harrison; Jim; Dr. Glen Daigger Michigan ex BV; Paula Dorn’s Nereda)
5. Low charge industrial refrigeration ( Evapco, Kurt Liebendorfer/Arturo Manjarrez); splits for refrigeration
6. Bulk volume fermenters (Dr. Young), e.g. 10,000 m3 * 2; large cover/liner reservoirs/other/msw
7. Hydrogen (Chris Tasser, Carollo California)
8. Oil less refrigeration
9. Falling film chillers, e. g. 20 tons ice/day (Dr. Spang)
10. MBRs (membrane bioreactors) also MABRs (Dupont’s, Fluence)
11. antifouling cooling tower fills 500/190/75 audience
12. fused glass steel applications, e.g Florida Aquastore; various
13. PFAs
14. nutrient removal via anaerobic methods (wastewater treatment); sample commercial systems