The course lecturers are all international leaders in their fields and active members of the University’s leading Centre for Energy Technology - visit CET website and follow the links to home pages of the individual staff. The lecturers combine leading experience both in the practice and development of combustion technology and other energy-related systems.

A brief summary of the background of the participating staff is as follows:

On completion of the course, students should:

The following texts are highly relevant and strongly recommended, but are not followed directly:

S.R. Turns “An Introduction to Combustion”, McGraw Hill,

PJ Mullinger and B.G. Jenkins “Design and Operation of Industrial and Process Furnaces”, Elsevier (This book is available as an e-book, via the Barr Smith library, for students enrolled at the University of Adelaide. 

Copies of all presentations will be made available after each lecture

Supplementary material for the design project will be provided

Links to public lectures and seminars from the Environment Institute will be provided

A range of other material is available via MyUni

The course is heavily biased toward practical tools, with 15 hours of tutorials, 6 hours of laboratory work and a 2 hour tour, compared with 21 hours of lectures. It is centred around a Design Project, which designs the combustion system for a rotary cement kiln and includes undertaking a mass and enegy balances to size the burner and a momentum-based mixing parameter. The tour is of a large and leading cement plant to provide insight into the facility being designed by students in the classroom. The lectures are structured to provide relevant input to the design process. The virtual combustion laboratory is a unique learning tool developed by the lecturing staff, in which the user can assess the effect on the performance of a flame of varying the fuel flow rate based on real-flame data recorded in our laboratories and presented in an interactive format. This is linked to the lectures on premixed and non-premixed flames.

In addition to the marked assignments, three other tutorials are provided that are not examined.

The design project is undertaken in groups of four for Final Year students, and individually for Masters students. It is a significant undertaking, but can be readily managed by working steadily through the semester. The virtual combustion laboratory can be completed in the allocated time provided students are well organised and focussed on the task. The work-load has been refined over the ten years in which the course has been run to provide a balanced work-load that is well reflected in the value of the 3 point subject.

Long-sleeves, long pants and closed toe shoes are a requirement for the industrial tour. Students should be aware that they will be walking through a dusty plant, so that strong work-shoes or work-boots are recommended and one should avoid wearing “best” white or polished shoes if you want them to remain in their original state.

Buses will be provided and students must nominate for the early or late time option. Details will be provided in the lectures.

• Kiln Design Project: 25%,

• Assignments 3 @ 3.33% 10%

• Virtual Combustion Lab 2 @ 5% 10%

• Final Exam 55%

Tutorials are considered to be compulsory. Whether or not students have submitted each assignment will be considered strongly in assessing marks which are border-line between grade options (e.g. border-line pass/fail or credit/distinction).

Details on the assessment tasks will be provided

• Stoich. & Thermo. Assignment end of week 4

• Flames Assignment end of week 6

• VCL 2 due end of week 9

• Kiln Design Project due end of week 10

• VCL 3 due end of week 11

• Measurement Assignment end of week 11