19 th Australasian Fluid Mechanics Conference Melbourne, Australia 8-11 December 2014 An Effective Laboratory Method for Thermal Fluid Mechanics Course F. Alam 1 , H. Chowdhury 1 , B. Loganathan 1 , S. Mobin 1 , A. Kootsookos 1 , J. Tu 1 and N. Islam 2 1 School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia 2 School of Civil and Mechanical Engineering Curtin University, Perth, Australia Abstract Laboratory practice plays a crucial role in engineering especially in thermal fluid education. The advancement of computational and computer technologies have ushered in a new horizon in learning and teaching of laboratory practices world-wide. Apart from traditional hands-on laboratory practice, the virtual/simulated laboratory practices are playing an increasingly dominant role. The virtual laboratory practices offer unique opportunities for students to visualise complex concepts and remove the time and location barrier. This paper presents a 3-step hybrid laboratory practice developed at RMIT University for thermal fluid course. It is evident that a combination of video clip, hands on laboratory practice and virtual/simulated laboratory practice enhances the student learning experience and learning outcomes. Introduction The laboratory practices, as an integral part of engineering and technology education, prepare students to apply theoretical knowledge into practice and to extract data necessary for a design, evaluate a new device, or discover new knowledge (Alam et al. [1]. Laboratory practices assist students to develop critical enquiry and problem solving skills [2-4]. The advancement of educational technology and information and communication technology (ICT) offers unique opportunities to visualise and explore further many complex phenomena in engineering especially thermal fluid education. Most engineering programs (mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical, etc.) are laboratory intensive. They require huge laboratory equipment, facilities, periodical maintenance and skilled staff that are expensive and time consuming. As public funding is gradually reducing, most universities in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada and other parts of the developed nations have been facing financial difficulties. Mechanical engineering program especially thermal fluid course(s) is hit hard and is forced to find alternative ways to maintain the delivery of quality education to students. Many mechanical engineering programs have been forced to reduce their expenditure on capital equipment, replacement of old facilities, operating and maintenance costs, and reduce the supporting technical and academic staff [1, 3-8]. Additionally, some engineering programs have large class sizes (200-300 students). For laboratory practice, students are required to divide into smaller group of below 10 [3-4]. Therefore, it is difficult to provide adequate practical facilities and laboratory practice time to students with increasingly diminishing limited resources. In order to provide students an opportunity to conduct hands-on laboratory practice with shorter time, exposure to relevant theories, familiarisation with laboratory equipment, and further exploration with virtual/simulated laboratory environment, a three-step laboratory teaching methodology is proposed. The three-step method consists of a video clip of the real laboratory experiment and relevant theories, hands-on laboratory practice and computer simulation. The video clip explains all the relevant theoretical knowledge required for the hands-on laboratory experiment and equipment, as well as how to use them, by an experienced academic. All students are required to watch the video clip before they carry out the real laboratory practice. As students are familiarised with the laboratory equipment, facilities, relevant theories and safety instructions well before they undertake the actual laboratory work, the process shortens the two-hour laboratory session into one hour or less without compromising the quality of education. After watching the video clip and conducting the laboratory experiment, students perform the computer simulation using the practical laboratory parameters as input to complete the exercise (in this case, drag measurement of a circular cylinder). Upon completion of the computer simulation, students are required to compare their results with the experimental findings. Additionally, students need to modify their computational input parameters to obtain variable results, analyse and compare them with the published data. In this process, students can further strengthen their theoretical and experimental knowledge without any extra costs to the university. The three-step laboratory teaching concept was piloted in order to obtain students’ feedback and see if the learning out comes are enhanced. The methodology was used in the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia for thermal fluid courses undertaken by students of aerospace, mechanical, manufacturing and automotive engineering programs. Fluid mechanics is generally considered as one of the most complex and challenging subjects as it deals with the complex nature of mass flow and heat transfer, and the basic concepts are usually difficult to understand due to the level of mathematics and physics required. A schematic of the three-step teaching and learning scheme is described in Alam et al. [3]. The Three-Step Teaching Method The laboratory practice selected for this method is an experiment “Drag Measurement of a Circular Cylinder using pressure integration method” of thermal fluid mechanics course. Step One: Video Clip of the Practical Laboratory A video film was made about the drag measurements of a circular cylinder laboratory experiment with the assistance of audio/video professionals. An experienced academic explained all the relevant theory, step-by-step description of laboratory equipment and experimental procedure. The video film was converted to a Virtual Laboratory Video (Figure 1) and linked with the course web interface as shown in Figure 2. Students can visit the course website and play the video clip of the laboratory at their