A remote virtual experiment in mechanical engineering

The current paper presents an educational platform that is intended to promote and to develop students' motivation and competences both in the fields of mechanical design and structural optimization, by taking as demonstration the problem of minimizing thermal residual stresses in functionally graded structures, using the differential evolution optimization technique. These goals are enabled by taking advantage of the friendly interaction between two commercial software packages, MATLAB and LabVIEW, which can provide an integrated tool for engineering education and research. The educational platform empowers students to an easier perception and intermediate results tracking, concerning to the optimization process, as well as the influence, on thermal residual stresses, of considering different: temperature distribution profile, layer thickness or volume fraction law exponent, among other optimization related parameters. This pilot project is entering on its implementation phase, wherein students are required to explore the multiple potentialities of this platform to support their learning process.