Use of COMSOL Simulation for Undergraduate Fluid Dynamics Course

The COMSOL software was used to introduce CFD and teach fluid dynamics more effectively. Introduction of CFD has become an important part of fluid dynamics in recent years; however, undergraduate students have less access to practical exposure to it, unless they take additional elective courses which are seldom offered in undergrad predominant institutes. Simulation has become an essential step in designing and optimizing process in many engineering problems. Therefore, the COMSOL simulation project was assigned to undergraduate CFD as a part of their term project to enhance their exposure to simulation software and help understanding the use of simulation on the model testing. This paper presents a case study of an undergraduate fluid dynamics project where students were challenged to design a shape, estimate the drag and lift coefficient through the COMSOL simulation. The study was assessed by quizzes to evaluate the simulation enhanced understanding of the fluid concepts and student survey to evaluate how the simulation contributed their learning experience. Employing the COMSOL simulation on fluid dynamics on simple fluid problems as a part of term project could be an effective way of offering CFD to students who have limited access to CFD courses