The objective of this project is the acquisition of a Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) and water tunnel for the newly developed Thermal Sciences Laboratory. The LDV serves as an instructional tool for linking material taught in the three foundational thermal science courses of fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and thermodynamics and as an introduction to a state-of-the-art measurement system that is becoming more and more utilized in industry and academia. The addition of the LDV and water tunnel experiments supports a change that adds a 1-credit Thermal Sciences Laboratory and a 1-credit Fluid Mechanics Laboratory to the Mechanical Engineering curriculum. The target audience for the project is undergraduate mechanical engineering students, but the project also affects undergraduate students in the fields of chemical and civil and environmental engineering. The equipment is also being used to demonstrate LDV operation and basic fluid/thermal phenomena to high school students in an established pre-engineering program at the university. The impact of the project is an increased student understanding of often elusive thermal science principles and student familiarity with an instrumentation system that could enhance the competitiveness of their future employers.
