Although they’ve only been at university for half a year, the engineering students at Central Queensland University’s Gladstone campus are already proving they have the skills and knowledge to solve real-life problems.

The first-year students recently presented their solutions to real industrial problems as part of a course that aims to use real industrial projects as a tool for the students to develop their management, research and analytical skills.

Engineering lecturer, Ken Smith said Cement Australia identified projects for the students to work on and provided the necessary support to enable the students to gather the information needed to achieve solutions.

“The students approached the task with enthusiasm. Using the mathematical, scientific, team and research skills they have gained during the first half of the year they have formulated practical solutions to the industrial problems they've encountered.

“The experience of working in a team to solve real problems with real deadlines, and dealing with the problems that go with teamwork is a valuable learning experience and they have all learnt a lot from the experience,” said Mr Smith.

The projects required the students to find a solution to a recurring fatigue failure of a screw conveyor and to find a solution to a material return and dust problem on a flyash ship loading belt conveyor. In both cases they were able to identify solutions.

“In the first case a new crew tail end shaft was designed and in the second the students proposed an electrostatic method of collecting flyash dust,” said Mr Smith.

Photo to Left: Laurie Tooker, Chris Spencer, Ben Bowers, Zachary Zwisler, Ken Wogandt presented on the recurring fatigue failure of a screw conveyor.

Photo Above: Luke Miller, Michael Wilkinson, Nathaniel Dunnett, Andrew Smith from the second group with their electrostatic testing devise.