TEACHING TURBOMACHINERY UNDER THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA

Turbomachines are key components of a variety of devices that surround our lives. They are behind the majority of power producing plants in our civilization and they are the most powerful machines in industry, greatly contributing to energy security and sustainability. They propel aircrafts and are even forming part of natural organisms. Turbomachines are produced yearly by millions. Turbomachines teaching at the University level, both undergraduate and graduate, has been split between different subjects making it inefficient and cumbersome. Sometimes unnecessary simplifying hypothesis are taken. They can be taught using solid background without any limitation to being small, large, of hydraulic type or of compressible flow using the same theory and teaching technique. This way a coherent unitary teaching is possible in a compact format and serving many applications downstream student curricula. Problem Based Learning (PBL) techniques can be used to some extent to introduce new topics and concepts in an alliance with the students using well known cases by them. This way the most compromising concepts can be acquired with the minimum of effort and failures. Motivation is the principal objective in this part. Laboratory practices can be used to offer the student both a direct contact with the machines and to gather proficiency in the measurement techniques. Virtual practices will help in expressing in mathematical language the calculations for application of the theory. Mathcad (r) is an appropriate environment for this. Authors have experienced these techniques for more than a decade with good results.