Abstract
Process simulators are powerful supporting tools employed at all educational levels of engineering education. Meanwhile, digitalization is obliging the educational systems to adapt. In this new era marked by the Industry 4.0 movement, the formulation and implementation of models are fundamental for process digitalization; therefore, students and new trainees must be familiar with process models, simulators and programming. In this work, a computer-aided framework for the development of process simulators is proposed (P2Si). This framework integrates the following aspects: (i) the use, reuse, and explanation of process models; (ii) a tailored learning design; (iii) game elements; and, (iv) the use of students as co-designers through participatory design to improve the human-computer interaction. Through the application of a series of hierarchical steps, the framework’s workflow aims to arrive at a promising candidate to facilitate the teaching of processes. Furthermore, a proof of concept is developed for the teaching and training of undergraduate students, where the case of an aerobic microbial conversion process at industrial scale is explored. By applying this framework, we obtained the conceptual design of a pedagogical process simulator, which was then implemented as a prototype software platform, BioVL (www.biovl.com), for further development and testing. The main output of this work is the conceptual design of pedagogical process simulators integrating gamification and the use of process models as educational tools. In conclusion, the proposed framework has shown its merit when designing a computer-aided tool suited to support the transition towards the increased industrial digitalization as well as to address current educational challenges.
Highlights
Industrial chemical and biochemical engineering, as well as the training and education of engineers, is under continuous evolution
Digitalization is obliging the educational systems to adapt. In this new era marked by the Industry 4.0 movement, the formulation and implementation of models are fundamental for process digitalization; students and new trainees must be familiar with process models, simulators and programming
We obtained the conceptual design of a pedagogical process simulator, which was implemented as a prototype software platform, BioVirtual Lab (BioVL), for further development and testing
Summary
Industrial chemical and biochemical engineering, as well as the training and education of engineers, is under continuous evolution. In chemical and biochemical engineering classrooms, computeraided tools have been the most common digital platforms used to teach processes These tools, referred here as simulators, can reproduce phenomena (e.g., kinetic reactions, filtration, etc.) under different conditions and, when used in education, they can help the students to gain theoretical knowledge and conceptual understanding (Feisel and Rosa, 2005; Balamuralithara and Woods, 2009). These simulators are not adequate when students aspire to understand and apply their knowledge, and to evaluate and create such information through active experimentation (Abdulwahed and Nagy, 2009) While using both types of simulators in the classroom (educational-focused, such as LABSTER, or for rigorous design, such as ASPEN HYSYS), students have found several areas for potential improvements, such as the lack of collaborative and customized learning (Dyrberg et al, 2017; Caño de las Heras et al, 2021). Noteworthy is that the proposed framework is generic, and each step can be applied independently based on the availability of information
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