Improving Student Motivation Using a 3D Printed Heat Exchanger Project

The importance of hands-on experiences in engineering education has been recognized for decades. Yet creating and running an effective hands-on experience, especially in the thermal sciences is challenging. This paper will outline a project that asks students to design, build, and test a heat exchanger. In addition to being hands-on, the project incorporates two high-impact educational practices. First, the project is collaborative as groups of 4-5 students work on designing their heat exchangers. Second, the project serves a sort of "capstone project" for the thermal science classes by integrating topics from thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer. While attempts to incorporate designing, building, and testing of heat exchangers as part of a mechanical engineering curriculum are not new, these projects presented challenges with manufacturing in addition to the thermal design. With the invention of thermally conductive plastics that can be used with a 3D printer, students can have a hands-on thermal science design experience within an 8-week time frame. In order to facilitate testing of the designs, a heat exchanger testing apparatus was built by previous students as their capstone design experience. An outline of the necessary components for the heat exchanger testing apparatus, the 3D printer, and the printer material is presented. The assignment and a few examples of student-generated designs are provided. Finally, the results of a survey that seeks to understand how the project affected the student's motivation and self-assessed learning are discussed.