Used at Michigan State University in fluid mechanics for pipe network design and in water distribution modeling and design. Students design real pressurized networks with live hydraulic grade line visualization, pressure zone analysis, and cost feedback. Real modeling, real visualization, real-time design — not textbook exercises.
Active Learning with ConduitNET
Four ways in: watch it, investigate it, design with it, and solve with it. The Design rung is live today; the rest arrive in upcoming releases.
Short, narrated simulations — the foundation rung.
Guided ConduitNET runs of pressurized flow, pump cycles, tank dynamics, and water age.
Open-ended cases where students investigate the way professionals do.
Pressure-deficiency diagnosis, leakage attribution, and resilience analysis on real networks. Each case is open-ended: students form a hypothesis, interrogate a real site with the model, and defend a conclusion from evidence — the way professionals actually work.
Game-based design competitions — already developed. Students compete inside ConduitNET, defending plans with simulated outcomes, not opinions.
A graded problem library that turns every concept into assessable practice.
Distribution-network problems on real systems, browsable by topic and difficulty, ready to assign.
Distribution engineering has been taught the same way for decades: students memorize Hazen-Williams, compute a few pipe networks by hand or with EPANET, and graduate knowing how to analyze an existing system but not how to design one under real constraints. This is the gap the profession has lived with for a generation.
Students design a complete water distribution system for a small city: source, treatment, transmission mains, distribution grid, storage. They iterate on pipe sizes and pump selection watching HGL and cost update live. Network hydraulics, pressure zones, and the classic Hazen-Williams problem learned by doing. Excellent foundational exercise before students take on the capstone.
A main breaks. A pump fails. Demand spikes on the hottest day of the year. Students have 20 minutes to redesign their system and defend their choices in front of the class. Real utility engineers face this test weekly; now students do too.
A contaminant enters a node. Students identify who's affected, design isolation valves, and plan the restoration sequence — within a realistic emergency-response window. Public health and hydraulics merge into one decision problem.