Advanced Studies in Chemical Engineering

Heavy-Duty Code to Build Complex Models

A chemical engineering professor at the University first learned about the IMSL Libraries over twenty years ago and began teaching it to his students in the mid-80s.

I had read so much about IMSL, that I knew it could do what I needed it to do for my work and for my students. It is an excellent teaching tool that students can take into the real world after they graduate.

The Chemical Engineering Department needed some heavy-duty code to build and expand upon a variety of complex models. The Department builds a broad range of applications such as models for computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis, molecular modeling, and heat and mass transfer. There is also a special focus on the analysis of manufacturing processes, which includes the use of extrusion dies. The professor and his students model the flow of polymers in an extrusion die to optimize the manufacturing of parts. They monitor how the fluid flows through the manifold into the extrusion die, and they develop models for how to optimize the process and get the fluid to flow evenly over the die.

In order to solve these types of problems, the department needed a flexible, reliable and accurate development tool for building complex models. He also did not want the students to have to waste time building the algorithms from scratch. For those reasons, he turned to IMSL for Fortran many years ago and has never looked back.

High-End Capabilities to Manage Complex Problems

"IMSL for Fortran is extremely robust. It has a broad base of routines that are very useful in my work and it is easy to use. It allows you to extend subroutines for more complex problem-solving. The students don't have to spend time building code; they just have to learn how to apply it to their problems. This saves a lot of unnecessary and complex programming so they can learn other things," said the Professor.

The Professor has found that nothing else has the high-end capabilities to manage the complex problems he needs to solve. "I ran one problem that took 8 hours with another product and it only took a few seconds with IMSL," he said. "I think that speaks for itself."

He quickly learned that once students become familiar with IMSL, they would never have a need to turn back and learn another development tool.

Above all, he claims that IMSL Fortran is an excellent base for his students, exposing them to a methodology that will serve them well in the real world. IMSL enables the professor and his students to focus on the important problems at hand. "The range of problems it can solve is much broader than anything else out there." 

Return On Investment 

When asked to describe the benefits that IMSL Fortran Library has brought to the University, the Professor explains, once again, that it is all about his students. "If I can teach them what they need to know and they can get good jobs because of it, then we have done our job here. The return comes back to us when the kids are successful. When the students are successful, the University is successful." He goes on to point out that students return to the University with research grants and the like so it is in the best interest of everyone to teach with the best possible tools.

We have to push our students so that they learn how to solve problems, IMSL Fortransaves us a lot of time and unnecessary programming so that we can get on with the problems at hand.

Save Time on Complex Programming

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