New 4th Year Undergraduate Course on Constructal Design of Energy-System Configuration

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

The course is treating an important aspect of the current race toward smaller and smaller scales. The ultimate, useful devices are always macroscopic. The greater the success in making smaller components, the greater the challenge to install larger numbers of such components and to connect them with currents (heat, fluid, electricity), needed to keep them working properly. The challenge is to deduce the flow configuration of the macroscopic device. To construct is to proceed in the opposite direction, from small to large. This course is teaching design from principle, design as part of science. The constructal design concept opens the students' eyes to the graphic meaning of thermodynamic imperfection. The course is utilizing geometry, elements of variational calculus, the optimization of shapes and structures, and pencil & paper problem solving. The constructal design concept brings together several branches of engineering, biophysics (e.g., animal design), and geophysics (e.g., river basins), and teaches the links between man-made design and natural design.