ENCN342-20S2 (C) Semester Two 2020

Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulics

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 13 July 2020
End Date: Sunday, 8 November 2020
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 24 July 2020
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 25 September 2020

Description

Open channel flow; pipe networks; Navier-Stokes equations; scale and dimensional analysis; inviscid flow; boundary layers; turbulent flow; lift and drag.

Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulics is the second, and final, compulsory course on fluid mechanics in the undergraduate curriculum for civil and natural resources engineering students. It follows on from ENCN242, Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology, in the first professional year. Generally, mathematical skills are quite important in the study of fluid motion and for this reason both ENCN242 and EMTH210 are prerequisites for this course.

The course is split into two self-contained sections that reflect a general philosophy of the course. The course aims to provide undergraduate civil and natural resources engineers with an understanding of, and an ability to solve, problems that arise in standard hydraulic problems that a practising hydraulics engineer would encounter. This includes the modelling of open channel flow and of pipe network systems. At the same time the course aims to provide you with a fundamental understanding of the fluid flow principles that underpin all types of fluid motion. While these principles appear to be rather less practical than, say, the analysis of open channel flow, they are applicable across a broad range of fluid dynamical problems that an engineer might encounter in their professional life – for example in the analysis of effluent dispersal in the environment, in the modelling of the interaction of ocean waves with coastal structures, in the modelling of groundwater flow in underground aquifers, or the erosion of sediments around bridge piers in a gravel bed river. Fluid mechanics and hydraulics courses in the third professional year, and at graduate level, build on these principles, providing students with experience and problem solving ability in a range of typical applications.

Learning Outcomes

The learning objectives for this course are divided into Mastery based objectives and Grade based objectives. For the former you are expected to be able to demonstrate mastery of the learning outcomes and the assessment process is designed to enable you to do this. For the latter it is expected that you will achieve some level of understanding of the learning outcomes and your grade will be based on your demonstrated level of understanding.

Each learning objective maps to some of the attributes in the Washington Accord:  an international agreement that stipulates the key learning outcomes for professional degrees in a number of jurisdictions around the world. You can find the full list of these attributes (WA) at the website
http://www.ieagreements.org/accords/washington/

The learning objectives are tabulated below.

Mastery-based objectives:

# Learning objective WA
1      Analyse transitions, hydraulic jumps, uniform flow and gradually varied flow in steady open channel hydraulics. WA1

2      Analyse and design simple pipe networks. WA1

Grade-based objectives:

# Learning objective WA
3     Analyse problems in fluid mechanics from first principles using approximations to the Navier Stokes equations as well as the tools of dimensional analysis, scale analysis and dynamic similarity. WA1

Prerequisites

Restrictions

ENCI341

Equivalent Courses

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Craig McConnochie

Lecturers

Roger Nokes , Pedro Lee and Markus Pahlow

Assessment

The assessment for this paper will comprises three components – a laboratory report, a mid-semester test and the final exam.

Mastery-based assessment

The mid-semester test is focussed on the mastery-based learning objectives. This test will be open book such that you can bring any written material with you into the test, although electronic devices will not be permitted.  The test will have an extended time allocation so that time pressure should not be a determining factor in your performance.  This test tries to emulate a professional environment as much as possible.

You are expected to demonstrate mastery of the material in learning objectives 1 and 2 and therefore a pass mark of 90% is required.  If you do not achieve this standard you will have one opportunity to resit a similar test in term 4. Again you need to achieve a mark of at least 90% to pass the resit test.  If you do not pass either the test or resit you will not be able to pass this course no matter what mark you achieve in the final exam.

Grade-based assessment

All of the material contributing to learning objective 3 will be examined in the final exam.  This exam will be assessed in the normal way and the mark obtained in this exam will contribute to your final grade.  However, a mark of at least 40% in the final exam is required in order to pass the course.

Internal assessment

No assignments that contribute to your final grade will be included in the course assessment. Practise problems will be provided to you, along with feedback and worked solutions so that you can check your understanding as you work your way through the course. We believe that this is a more constructive learning process for you as it removes assignment deadline pressures and focuses on your learning.


Final Grade Calculation

To pass this course you must first pass the mid-semester test or the equivalent resit. Your final mark will then be calculated as follows:

Final Mark  =  (25 + 0.75*Exam)%

where the exam marks are assumed be marked out of 100%.

Dates and times for the test, resit and exam will be announced soon after the beginning of the course.

Special Consideration

Students can only apply for special consideration for this course if they can passed the mastery-based assessment.

Notes

Course Workload and Delivery

This course is primarily a lecture course. In the four lectures each week we will present, and discuss, the core material covered in the course. This material will be presented in a variety of ways including notes written on the whiteboard or slide presentations. It is our teaching philosophy that lectures are best spent explaining and clarifying fundamental concepts and trying to simplify the “hard stuff”. We will use examples and problems to illustrate techniques and concepts but we expect that you will put in time outside lectures to refine your understanding through revision and additional reading, and to hone your problem solving skills by working through illustrative problems. We have no doubt that the understanding you gain in this course is directly related to the time you spend independently wrestling with the concepts presented.

We find that the development of a lecture course is easier if it is well structured. Our experience tells us that students also appreciate a clear structure to the material they are trying to assimilate. For this reason we have constructed the course from sets of logically related modules.

The lecture material is also supported through a number of tutorials where we will set example problems for you to work through under the guidance and supervision of a number of tutors. These tutorials provide you with an excellent opportunity to develop your problem solving skills in a supportive environment. Make sure you take full advantage of these sessions.

Our role in this course is to help you learn. We cannot do the learning for you, nor transfer our understanding to you without you doing your part in assimilating the ideas and concepts contained in the course. We try to provide as much outside-of-lectures support as we can by operating an open door policy to our offices. If you are struggling with concepts come and see us, but see us early! The week before the exam is too late. However, before you come to see us make sure you have worked on the problem at hand. Come to us armed with your ideas and problem solving attempts. Then we can have a productive session together!

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $975.00

International fee $5,500.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Civil and Natural Resources Engineering .

All ENCN342 Occurrences

  • ENCN342-20S2 (C) Semester Two 2020