Contribution: A demonstration of a move from face-to-face to blended learning in an engineering Master's program by adding a parallel online group, which showed the synergy between blended and online approaches in terms of level of interaction, enrollment, student satisfaction, dropout rate, and final grades. Background: Education's transition from traditional face-to-face learning to blended and full online learning can be confronted in different ways. Extensive research has demonstrated that the incorporation of online resources has a positive effect on learning outcomes and can help to assure the continuity of a Master's program. Intended Outcomes: To increase enrollment and student satisfaction, and reduce the dropout rate. Application Design: New equipment and online resources and additional support material allowed students to choose their preferred manner of studying: asynchronous (lecture capture) or synchronous (face-to-face or live broadcast lecture). Findings: The changes increased enrollment and student satisfaction, and lowered the dropout rate. The new methodology significantly improved students' average grades, with no significant differences being found between the blended and online groups. This case study could guide other institutions in the successful implementation of blended and online learning in an engineering Master's degree program.

Cooling towers are evaporative heat transfer devices in which atmospheric air cools warm water, with direct contact between the water and the air by evaporating part of the water. The principle of operation of cooling towers requires spraying or distributing water over a heat transfer surface (packing) across or through which a stream of air is passing. As a result, water droplets are incorporated in the air stream and,depending on the velocity of the air, will be taken away from the unit. This is known as drift. Although cooling tower drift is objectionable for several reasons, the most hazardous problem concerning human health is the emission of chemicals or microorganisms into the atmosphere. Undoubtedly, regarding microorganisms, the most well-known pathogens are the multiple species of bacteria collectively known as legionella. The binomial water distribution system-drift eliminator is identified to be that mainly responsible for cooling tower drift. While water distribution systems affect the mechanics of setting up the drops, drift eliminators work by changing the direction of the airflow and separating droplets from the airstream through inertial impact. The drift eliminator’s performance can be quantified mainly by two factors: droplet collection efficiency and the pressure drop across the eliminator. In contrast, water distribution systems are characterized by the pressure drop across itself and the achieved size of the particle spread. Alongside drift, the binomial water distribution system-drift eliminator affects the cooling tower performance. From the reviewed bibliography, some studies assessing the effect of the drift eliminator on cooling tower performance have been found. Nevertheless, no studies regarding the influence of the water distribution system on the cooling tower’s performance have been detected. In this sense, this paper studies the thermal performance of a forced draft counter-flow wet cooling tower fitted with two water distribution systems (the pressure water distribution system (PWDS) and gravity water distribution system (GWDS)) for six drift eliminators for a wide range of air and water mass flow rates. The data registered in the experimental set-up were employed to obtain correlations of the tower characteristic, which defines the cooling tower’s thermal performance. The outlet water temperature predicted by these correlations was compared with the experimentally registered values, obtaining a maximum averaged difference of ±0.95%.The authors wish to acknowledge the collaboration of the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spanish Education and Science Ministry) for their support of project PN I+D+I 2008-2011 ENE2010-21679-C02- 02