An Educational Framework for Process Control Theory and Engineering Tools

The student’s education conducted by the Chair of Process Control Engineering at RWTH Aachen University involves the two elements lecture and laboratory course. Due to the continuously rising number of students and the resulting variety of student’s technical backgrounds, it is no longer possible to offer laboratory sessions to all registered students. As a result, we established a framework that allows the students to experiment by using the theoretical principles from the lecture without having to participate in the laboratory courses. That means, the framework has to cover a whole range of different aspects involving the planning and engineering of a plant by means of Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams, the physical simulation and the eventual implementation of the automation application. Our framework concept, while not originally part of the Blended Learning project, represents a teaching program that well aligns with the Blended Learning approach supported by RWTH Aachen University.