Session Q01: Fluid Dynamics - Education, Outreach and Diversity (3:55pm - 4:40pm CST)

Visualizing time varying complex CFD flows in Virtual Reality

We discuss immersive visualisation and exploration of large CFD flows of time-varying vector fields in a virtual reality (VR) environment. Processing and visualisation of large CFD datasets can be expensive in terms of computation and rendering time, especially for VR scenarios. In our approach, we have utilised a consumer-grade GPU for interactive visualisation of time-varying three-dimensional vector fields such as velocity. The immersive system is built using Unity3D, which is a virtual reality development software. In our system, flow is visualized as 3D flowlines surrounding the surface of a 3D model that vary over time. The flowlines consist of thousands of particles rendered using GPU. The particles are programmed to orient and follow the direction of the 3D vector field. The flowlines appear in different hues of colours representing their respective scalar magnitudes. With this VR system, students gain an intuitive understanding of the time-varying flow characteristics derived from in house CFD simulations of complex industrial processes such as mixing in stirred vessels.   

Rap + Fluid Mechanics = "It's All About Flow"

A professionally-made rap music video about fluid mechanics is presented. The purpose of the video is entertainment and outreach. The entire song content makes analogies to major topics from theoretical, computational, and experimental fluid mechanics and includes comparisons between fluid and rap flows. Lyrics explanations are available in the video description for audiences with no prior knowledge of the topics. Reading the explanations takes about 10 to 20 minutes and provides a good understanding of the fundamental aspects of fluid mechanics. The video titled "It's All About Flow" is currently one of the most-watched videos on the ASME YouTube channel.   

Teaching undergraduate fluid mechanics during pandemic and lockdown.

Imagine that you are trying to teach introductory fluid mechanics in a pandemic. OK, we've been there and done that. Now imagine, that you are in country in the middle of governmental and financial collapse. On top, electricity cuts are a daily regular, and the internet supply is unreliable. How do you carry out undergraduate fluid mechanics instruction, and learning assessment in an effective manner knowing that students are strongly driven by GPA numbers and exam grades? The one question that this instructor formulated in response: is there a way to make sure that all students graduate this course and have a good handle on the basics of fluid mechanics? The answer was to teach by using take-home kitchen experiments that can be done with household items available during lockdown. For each of the four or five basic concepts/chapters, a project was assigned. To analyze their acquired data, students needed to develop a working level understanding of the recorded lectures posted on YouTube. The deliverables consisted of technical reports, videos, and/or data appendices. The experience has been very positive as measured by the unprecedented, high level of discussions and questions throughout the semester.   

Course-based undergraduate research in upper-level fluid dynamics electives: A case study

Recently, undergraduate research, including courses incorporating authentic research experiences for undergraduates, has become a focus of STEM education. The benefits of such experiences, including deeper understanding of scientific concepts, developing student identity as scientists, and increased engagement of women and underrepresented minorities are well documented. We sought to extend the course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) concept to an upper-level engineering elective in fluid dynamics by engaging students in research projects focused on building a device to produce or measure the flow of a fluid. This course module, run in parallel with traditional lecture activities, drew heavily on design activities including rapid prototyping and iteration, and additionally focused on disseminating the results of these studies with the broader fluid dynamics community. In this work, we outline the course structure and discuss the outreach activities and their impact beyond the classroom. Improvements implemented from the first and second year are discussed, and preliminary data suggesting the efficacy of course module is presented. Finally, future outlook and other perspectives resulting from this experience will be shared.   

Virtual Flow Visualization Instruction

The concept of teaching virtual art courses may seem very counterintuitive. Typically, essential means for delivering learning outcomes in the arts are in-person interaction and collaboration, hands-on experimentation, materials and equipment practices, specific space requirements, and live event components. Without these means, faculty are challenged not only with how to teach virtually but with how to redefine courses with very little of those tools that initially have defined the discipline. Now, imagine combining art with science as a General Education (GenEd) course! In response, we created an online Flow Visualization course for our students in the Fall with the intention to create a familiar sense of community where they could discover and grow through science and photography in addition to express themselves artistically, and be inspired by other students and artists. This work will introduce our online course, systematically present curriculum practices, identify tools that proved to be useful, and consider some of the student feedback in response to the experience.   

Active Engagement in the Time of COVID

Active learning techniques such as multiple choice concept questions (i.e. clicker questions) and small group problem solving are becoming more common in both graduate and undergraduate fluids classrooms during lectures. This fall the application of these techniques in socially-distanced classrooms, remote and hybrid classes has presented new challenges. The authors will briefly present their experiences so far this semester, and then open the floor for a community discussion of what active techniques are working and what aren't in these new circumstances. This unprecedented situation provides an impetus for innovation, and may lead to lasting improvements in teaching techniques for fluid mechanics.   

Group Exams: Helping students learn the material from the exam experience

In many classes, exams are necessary as a way of assessing student learning, but are often implemented as summative assessments only. Often, however, instructors may prefer that the exam is also a learning experience for their students. Here, I discuss the use of a group exam to achieve this goal in classes ranging from introductory algebra-based physics courses to advanced courses for physics majors. In my implementation, students take the exam individually and then repeat the same exam in groups of four. I discuss the details of my implementation, student response to the group portion of the exam, and learning outcomes.   

Devising Strategies for Online and Remote Teaching of Computational Fluid Dynamics Concepts.

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges for educators worldwide, with a heavy reliance on online and remote teaching modalities. Considering the lessons learnt during this pandemic, it is likely that remote teaching remains a prominent offering across institutions post-pandemic. However, delivering all forms of content effectively in remote teaching continues to pose difficulties, especially when considering active and hands-on modules and in-person interactions. This points to a need for integrating specific strategies and practices into course design and execution for remote learning. Here, we present our experience with devising strategies for online and remote teaching for an ongoing computational fluid dynamics class at the University of Colorado Boulder. With the transition to remote learning forced by pandemic lockdown measures, we designed and employed a number of technology-driven approaches to deliver content through online and remote modalities. These focused on providing an alternative avenue for hands-on exploration of key CFD concepts and techniques, as well as enabling peer-to-peer engagement despite the lack of in-person interactions. We will share our approach, our experiences, and our plans for future offerings of the class.   

Visualizing CFD data in 3D augmented reality as an extension of 2D figures in scientific publications

Modern CFD simulations increasingly rely on 3D computational techniques, and hence the findings are based on 3D datasets. However, the figures that support their claims are commonly reported and communicated with 2D figures. We present an end-to-end CFD data processing and distribution pipeline which extends 2D figures to show the corresponding 3D models in Augmented Reality (AR). The proposed system can process CFD data from Paraview and convert it to USDZ AR file. The resultant file allows for direct consumption CFD data by mobile devices for native AR rendering. Interactive 3D figures can help a reader to quickly obtain a better understanding of the CFD data as well as the conclusions drawn by the authors.