Fluid mechanics class that is a specialized basic subject in engineering education is difficult to learn for technical college students, and in order to earn the class credits, the study of students on fluid mechanics is easily limited to taking only the form of partial differential equations into account, and there is a problem in the quality of education that students are not able to understand and apply their knowledge of fluid mechanics very well.
In the flipped classroom, students prepare for new learning content by watching video lessons at home, and there is no lecture in the classroom. On the contrary, the teacher gives individualized instruction to each student on assignments that would traditionally be considered homework, and students work on them in collaboration with other students.
Since significant learning results can be expected from active and self-directed learning through active learning in flipped classrooms, it is assumed that flipped classrooms will gradually spread through experimental efforts, especially since it is considered to be a learning method compatible with online learning in the post-COVID19 era.
The purpose of this study is to introduce OpenFOAM that is a free software for fluid analysis into the flipped classroom, which has been attracting attention in the field of education, in response to the question of quality assurance in fluid mechanics classes in technical college education, and to find out how the simulation results of fluid phenomena visualized by students themselves can be connected to theoretical knowledge of fluid mechanics. From this educational practice in technical college, we aim to develop a remote flipped learning method to draw students' interests and make them feel "interesting and want to know more" by introducing the OpenFOAM into fluid mechanics class.
In this paper, we introduce a practical case study of a fluid simulation theme using OpenFOAM at Hiroshima College, in which students were asked to simulate fluid dynamics on their own by trial and error, following the operation manual of OpenFOAM, even they know less about theoretical knowledge of fluid mechanics.