RMIT seeks HVAC&R projects

RMIT University is seeking to promote the refrigeration, air conditioning and heating disciplines with its engineering students. The university is looking for industrial partners in this space to partner with the School of Engineering and propose potential student research projects, or “capstone projects”, for 2020.

What is a capstone project?

Undergraduate engineering students are all required to complete a two-semester, group research project in their final year of studies. These capstone projects provide an opportunity to tackle real-world engineering problems in a supervised environment. Depending on the project and the partnering business, they can also involve an element of onsite work to acquire data, work with technicians and engineers, report on progress and receive mentoring.

What makes a suitable project?

“There are a great number of challenges facing the refrigeration industry at the moment,” says RMIT lecturer and researcher Dr Cameron Stanley. “Research projects can be specific to a challenge that currently faces your business, or a broad industry project that you may wish to have more clarity on. Often these projects may constitute something that your business would love to explore, but do not have the resources to allocate to it.”

Stanley says the main requirement is that it is sufficiently pitched for undergraduate students involves enough technical challenge to occupy four or five students for eight months.

Examples include:

• Investigation of IoT sensors for remote performance monitoring (Mechanical Engineering/Electrical Engineering students)
• Thermal modelling of refrigerated transportation vehicles for the cold food chain (Mechanical Engineering students)
• Exploring policy incentives for increasing performance from small- to mid-sized refrigeration systems (Mechanical Engineering/Business/Law students)
• Demand management analysis for large refrigeration loads (Mechanical Engineering/Computer Science students)
• Feasibility assessment of implementing a CO₂ heat pumps/chillers in a process (Mechanical Engineering/Sustainable Energy/Electrical Engineering students).

“If you have a topic you think may be suitable, we are also more than happy to work with you to refine a project proposal to suit,” says Stanley.

What is the project duration?

Projects commence in early March 2020 and are completed by late October 2020.

Does it cost anything?

There is no expectation for partners to pay anything for students to undertake these projects. However, if the partner organisation requires the students to travel or undertake considerable site-based work to complete the research, it is expected associated costs are covered by the business. 

For more information contact Dr Cameron Stanley or call (03) 9925 4146.