2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In this work-in-progress paper, the authors present the Outcomes of the project, “Developing an AI application for Electric Vehicles (EVs) thermal management of the battery system,” in an “Engineering for Sustainable Development” technical elective course. The authors realized that the world is becoming unsustainable primarily due to the misuse of technology. In this context, the project's objective will be defined after completion of the Engineering for Sustainable Development course, offered to upper-level engineering students across all majors. The engineering technical elective course was established in the curricula of a major university in the southwest following rigorous, multi-year pedagogical research published by the authors in previous years. The mathematical model for the thermal management system is derived within the scope of circular designs for circular economies, as outlined in the course Engineering for Sustainable Development. The equations of energy, momentum, and conservation of mass are then used. In this approach, each equation is simplified to the specific case problem. A thorough instructor-led literature review led to the provision of specific, up-to-date thermal management system models to students, thereby facilitating the development of the control system algorithm. Incorporating artificial intelligence training into operating EV batteries, using data collected from the literature, yielded an incipient yet robust model that exposes engineering students to the complexity of Artificial Intelligence technology applied to sustainable engineering designs. Notably, following the completion of the course and project, a survey of the participating students revealed engaged opinions expressing their enthusiasm for working on the project, which marked the success of applying an innovative project-related pedagogical technique in the Engineering for Sustainable Development technical elective course.