Revolutionise Lab Teaching

Two pieces of laboratory teaching equipment made by Armfield Limited and enhanced in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) could revolutionise the way undergraduate engineering students use teaching laboratories.

The HT10XC Heat Transfer Teaching Equipment and the HT30XC Heat Exchanger Family are compact, benchtop systems to teach the principles of their respective subjects. Because they are computer controlled users can write software to enable them to be used over an intranet or even the internet.

This means that both students and lecturers are no longer confined to the physical laboratory and that many students can share the learning experience at the same time.


HT10XC Computer Controlled Heat Transfer Teaching Equipment
Heat Transfer Teaching Equipment
HT10XC Service Unit with HT11C Computer Controlled Linear Heat Conduction accessory
Radiation Errors
HT16C Computer Controlled Radiation Errors in Temperature Measurement

Radial Heat Conduction
HT12C Computer Controlled Radial Heat Conduction

The Armfield HT10XC is a computer controlled service unit, which can be used in conjunction with a range of accessories for a wide range of demonstrations of the modes of heat transfer. The factors affecting heat transfer can be investigated and some of the practical problems associated with the transfer of heat can be clearly demonstrated.
The heat transfer accessories may be individually connected to the HT10XC service unit which provides the necessary electrical supplies and measurement facilities for investigation and comparison of the different heat transfer characteristics.

The HT10XC incorporates the facilities and safety features to allow the accessories to be remotely controlled from an external computer, where this is appropriate. All the facilities can also be accessed locally using the front panel controls and display.

The HT10XC requires a personal computer with USB port for the operator interface.

Educational software is provided for all Armfield accessories. Included are drivers to allow other software applications to communicate with the HT10XC via the USB interface. Users can then write their own software typically in LabView, MatLab, 'C', 'C++', Visual Basic, Delphi, or any other software environment which allows calls to external drivers.

Users can thus write software to remotely control the equipment, for example over a Local Area Network (LAN) or even over the internet. The HT10XC has been designed to shut down safely in the event of a communications failure.

Once the heat exchanger has been installed and configured, the student does not need to be present with the equipment.

In addition to all the accessories suitable for manual control the following can be used in computer control and remote control applications:

HT11C: Computer controlled Linear Heat Conduction (material samples still need changing manually)
HT12C: Computer controlled Radial Heat Conduction
HT14C: Computer controlled Combined Convection and Radiation
HT15: Extended Surface Heat Transfer
HT16C: Computer controlled Radiation Errors in Temperature Measurement

HT30XC Computer Controlled Heat Exchanger Service Module
Reconfigurable Heat Exchanger
HT30XC Service Unit with HT37 Extended Reconfigururable Plate Heat Exchanger accessory
Tubular Heat Exhanger
HT31 Tubular Heat Exchanger
Easy connection
Easy connection of accessories


This benchtop computer controlled service unit allows the operation of the Armfield range of small-scale heat exchanger systems.

It provides controlled cold water flow, bi-directional hot water flow and the instrumentation required to do a series of in-depth investigations into heat exchanger performance. The individual heat exchangers can be quickly changed over to allow comparisons between different types of heat exchanger to be made. It is designed to shut down safely in the event of computer or communications failure.

Armfield heat exchangers available for the HT30XC.
HT31: Tubular Heat Exchanger
HT36: Extended Tubular Heat Exchanger (NEW)
HT32: Plate Heat Exchanger
HT37: Extended reconfigurable Plate Heat Exchanger (NEW)
HT33: Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger
HT34: Jacketed Vessel with Coil and Stirrer

The HT30XC requires a personal computer with USB for the operator interface.

Educational software is provided for all Armfield heat exchangers. Included are drivers to allow other software applications to communicate with the HT30XC via the USB interface. Users can write their own software typically in LabView, MatLab, 'C', 'C++', Visual Basic, Delphi, or any other software environment which allows calls to external drivers.

Users can thus write software to remotely control the equipment, for example over a Local Area Network (LAN) or even over the internet. The HT30XC has been designed to shut down safely in the event of a communications failure.
Once the heat exchanger has been installed and configured, the student does not need to be present with the equipment.

In a typical installation, the HT30XC would be connected to a local PC via the USB bus. The local PC would be connected to the user's PC via the LAN.

The operator interface software would be run on the remote (user's) PC and communicate to the control software on the local PC. (Armfield do not provide the software to implement this type of system).

For remote use, the appropriate heat exchanger would be installed onto the service unit, and the cold water pressure regulator adjusted to match the heat exchanger to the cold water supply. The unit is then switched on and remains in 'Standby' mode until appropriate software is run requesting the unit to power up fully.