Approaches for teaching mechanical engineering In Sri Lanka - use of modelling and simulation

Abstract

The factors, which affect the success of Mechanical Engineering profession is identified as a unique one with the country's economic structure and its survival in relation to continually changing world trade. How the profession should pose viable strategies in order to survive and to help the people to attain a reasonable standard of living are our main Engineering is a very vast field comprising many specialized disciplines out of them Mechanical Engineering suffers many difficulties in an unreasonable manner and extent. Healthy profession could be attained only by a sound educational system. We may fail to find satisfactory solutions to the industry's many vexing problems, which involve political issues and economical encumbrances created by it. Nevertheless we can identify the root causes, which may have a bearing on the educational setup, and mainly in the ways subjects are taught and any shortcoming in the variety of subjects offered to the students. Mechanical Engineering laboratories need modern and sophisticated equipment and updating or upgrading them continually is a major financial burden to the Universities and higher educational institutions. concern. This paper tries to highlight that Applied computing or Customer application software development and computer based treatment of most subjects is a plausible remedy at an affordable cost, if not the total solution.