Appendix H. How to Use the DVD-ROM
The primary purpose of the DVD-ROM1 is to serve as an enrichment resource. The benefits of using the DVD-ROM are fivefold:
- To facilitate different student learning styles: www.engin.umich.edu/~cre/asyLearn/itresources.htm
- To provide the student with the option/opportunity for further study or clarification of a particular concept or topic
- To provide the opportunity to practice critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem-solving skills
- To provide additional technical material for the practicing engineer
- To provide other tutorial information, such as additional homework problems and instructions on using computational software in chemical engineering
H.1 DVD-ROM Components
There are two types of information on this DVD-ROM: information that is organized by chapter and information organized by concept. Material in the “by chapter” section on the DVD-ROM corresponds to the material found in this book and is further divided into five sections.
• Objectives. The objectives page lists what the students will learn from the chapter. When students are finished working on a chapter, they can come back to the objectives to see if they have covered everything in that chapter. Or if students need additional help on a specific topic, they can see if that topic is covered in a chapter from the objectives page.
• Learning Resources. These resources give an overview of the material in each chapter and provide extra explanations, examples, and applications to reinforce the basic concepts of chemical reaction engineering. Summary Notes serve as an overview of each chapter and contain a logical flow of derived equations and additional examples. Web Modules and Interactive Computer Games (ICG) show how the principles from the text can be applied to nonstandard problems. Solved Problems provide more examples for students to use the knowledge gained from each chapter.
Links to entertaining YouTube videos can be found in the Summary Notes of Chapters 1, 3, 4, and 5.
Chapter 1: Fogler Zone (you’ve got a friend in Fogler).
Chapter 3: The Black Widow murder mystery and Baking a Potato by Bob the Builder and Friends.
Chapter 4: CRF Reactor Video, Crimson Reactor Firm’s video of a “semi batch” reactor with Diet Coke and Mentos.
Chapter 5: Learn a new dance and song, CSTR to the tune of YMCA. Also see Find Your Rhythm, an Ice Ice Baby remix.
• Living Example Problems. These problems are usually the second Home Problem in each chapter (e.g., P5-2B), most of which require computational software to solve. Polymath programs are provided on the DVD so students can download the program to “play” with the problem and ask “what if . . . ?” questions to practice critical and creative thinking skills. Students can change parameter values, such as the reaction rate constants, to learn to deduce trends or predict the behavior of a given reaction system.
• DVD-ROM Chapter Materials. The graduate material form the fourth edition of Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering, i.e., Chapters 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 are included on the DVD-ROM as PDF files. Chapter 15, which is also included, discusses radial gradients in PFRs and PBRs. These chapters are primarily used at the graduate level. These chapters are referred to in the text as, for example, “DVD-ROM Chapter 10.”
• Professional Reference Shelf. The Professional Reference Shelf contains two types of information. First, it includes material that is important to the practicing engineer but that is typically not included in the majority of chemical reaction engineering courses. Second, it includes material that gives a more detailed explanation of derivations that were abbreviated in the text. The intermediate steps to these derivations are shown on the DVD-ROM.
• Additional Homework Problems. New problems were developed for this edition. They provide a greater opportunity to use today’s computing power to solve realistic problems. Instead of omitting some of the more traditional, yet excellent problems of previous editions, these problems were placed on the DVD-ROM and can serve as practice problems along with those unassigned problems in the text.
The materials in Learning Resources are further divided into Summary Notes, Web Modules, Interactive Computer Games, and Solved Problems. Table H-1 shows which enrichment resources can be found in each chapter.
Table H-1. DVD-ROM Enrichment Resources
Note: The ICGs are high-memory-use programs. Because of the memory intensive nature of the ICGs, there have been intermittent problems (10–15% of Windows computers) with the games. You can usually solve the problem by trying the ICG on a different computer. In the Heatfx 2 ICG, only the first three reactors can be solved, and users cannot continue on to part 2 because of a bug currently in the program.
The information that can be accessed in the “by concept” sections is not specific to a single chapter. Although the material can be accessed from the by chapter sections, the “by concept” sections allow you to access certain material quickly without browsing through chapters.
• Interactive Web Modules. The DVD-ROM includes Web modules that use a Web browser for an interface and give examples of how chemical reaction engineering principles can be applied to a wide range of situations such as modeling cobra bites and cooking a potato.
• Interactive Computer Games (ICGs). The ICGs are games that use a Windows or DOS-based program for an interface. They test knowledge on different aspects of chemical reaction engineering through a variety of games such as basketball and jeopardy.
• Problem Solving. Here students can learn different strategies for problem solving in both closed- and open-ended problems. See the ten different types of home problems and suggestions for approaching them. Extensive information on critical and creative thinking can also be found in this section. Also see the Strategies for Creative Problem Solving by Fogler and LeBlanc along with the web site www.engin.umich.edu/scps/.
• Syllabus. A representative syllabus has been included on the DVD-ROM: a 4-credit-hour undergraduate course, Chemical Engineering 344.
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Over the years that I have taught this course, I have collected a number of questions that the students have asked over and over for years and years. The questions usually ask for clarification or for a different way of explaining the material or for another example of the principle being discussed. The FAQs and answers are arranged by chapter.
• DVD-ROM Chapter Materials. The graduate material form the fourth edition of Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering, i.e., Chapters 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 are included on the DVD-ROM as PDF files. DVD Chapter 15, which is also included, discusses radial gradients in PFRs and PBRs.
• Reactor Lab. The Reactor Lab software provides simulations of various chemical reactors. Students can actively learn about chemical reactions and reactors by performing experiments and analyzing data. The program can be downloaded free from www.SimzLab.com.
• Credits. See who was responsible for putting this DVD-ROM together.
H.2 How the DVD-ROM/Web Can Help Learning Styles
Students can evaluate their learning style by taking a 10-minute test on the website www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html. There is a direct link to this site in the Chapter 2 Summary Notes.
