Richard Herz, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Chemical Engineering Program, University of California, San Diego, Building EBU II, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093 and Gregory E. Ogden, Chemical & Environmental Engineering, University of Arizona, 1133 E. James E Rogers Way, Tucson, AZ 85721.
A distributed simulator for water purification plants is demonstrated. The simulator prototype is one of the modules of the PureWaterLab project. This project provides a portal for teaching water conservation and sustainability in manufacturing plants. Students and groups in different labs and also at different universities are able to collaborate in the same plant simulation. Plants are designed by selecting units from a palette, adding the units to a flowsheet, and piping the plant. Units may be local or remotely distributed over the Internet. XML text is used for messages between remote units for operating system- and language-independence. Teamwork, planning, communication skills are an important educational component in addition to teaching of unit operations, plant design and plant dynamics.