Virtual Instruments In An Undergraduate Environmental Engineering Laboratory

Cornell’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) is developing a new undergraduate laboratory course in Environmental Engineering. This course includes innovative experiments rel ated to recent or ongoing research conducted by CEE environmental faculty. A goal during course implemen tation was to integrate computerized instrument control and data acquisition without making computers and software the course focus. This would enable students to concentrate on theory and appli cation of physical, chemical, and biological processes with minimal time spent learning how to use new software packages or instruments. To achieve these goals in a cost effective and timely manner we developed customized “Virtual Instruments” (VIs) with a similar design for multiple instruments. Software was wri tten using LabVIEWTM to control and acquire data from a UV-Visible spectrophotometer, a gas chromatograph, a 3-axes positioning system, and a pH-ion meter that was also used to measure conductivity and dissolved oxygen. The first semester of student use in both the new undergradu ate envi ronmental laboratory course and a graduate level la boratory course confirmed the value of the new computerized instrumen tation. While in the laboratory, students were able to monitor time varying processes and perform d ata analyses that previously were not feasible. The features of VI’s that were developed for student use are discussed in this paper.