Vacation Research Experience Scheme student topics

Robust prediction of human-induced global warming and future climate requires more accurate climate models. Currently, aerosol-clouds interactions represent the largest source of uncertainty in our global climate models. To reduce this uncertainty, we need a better understanding of aerosol sources, chemical and physical properties, and processes impacting their growth to sizes where they can act as Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) and interact with incoming solar radiation.The Southern Ocean is a region of the world where climate and weather models, including …

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Process mining is an emerging discipline that aims at developing novel methods to discover knowledge from process execution data (stored in the format of event logs) and support evidence-based business process improvement. Specifically, process mining can be used for the task of discovering organizational models, providing insights on organizational structures and human resource (employee) performance. At the core of this task is cluster analysis, with challenges unique to process execution data.Most state-of-the-art process mining techniques address this task through first …

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Information Systems

Research centre(s)

Centre for Data Science

The very same thing that makes lithium batteries (LIBs) so attractive in modern society - the amount of energy they can store in a neat small package - can also make them dangerous. This creates a huge demand for understanding their safe use across their increasingly wide range of applications; from small things in your pocket, to big things parked underneath an apartment complex. Making batteries safer requires an understanding of how they fail. We can achieve this through deliberately …

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Lithium batteries come in all shapes, sizes and even chemistries. In today's world, making these batteries better is in constant demand. This requires prototyping and validation of new materials and designs. We achieve this through building new ideas into standardized cell formats and then applying a range of testing techniques. Our group can insert new components into our carefully optimized cell designs and testing protocols that go from little coin cells, up to cells you might find in things like …

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Australia is facing an unprecedented challenge in guiding travel demand so that the society is not overwhelmed with more road, traffic and the associated health burdens. The mobility culture of Australia is dominated by private car accounting for more than 80% of the trip share. Rapid growth in urbanization and higher motorized travel activities in Australis has brought increased safety, efficiency and environmental concerns. Australian commuters spend almost an hour per day on road resulting in a 23% rise of …

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research centre(s)

Centre for Behavioural Economics, Society and Technology
Centre for Future Mobility

Gastro-intestinal (GI) cancers affect over 28 million patients annually, representing about 26% of the global cancer incidence and 35% of all cancer-related deaths (American Cancer Society, 2018). Besides, GI cancer is the second deadliest cancer type with reported 3.4 million GI related deaths globally in 2018.Endoscopy plays a crucial role in diagnosing and managing GI disorders by providing detailed internal anatomical visualisation. Endoscopic procedures have become a cornerstone in minimally invasive surgery, offering patients reduced trauma and quicker recovery times. …

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Monitoring power assets is crucial for maintaining the safety and reliability of power infrastructure, particularly in natural environments. Traditional methods like manual inspections and ground surveys are often inefficient, time-consuming, and costly. Without automation, these approaches are susceptible to human error, offer limited coverage, and struggle to keep up with the dynamic nature of natural environments.Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) technology provides efficient solutions through 3D point cloud data for various monitoring applications. In the power industry, monitoring power lines, …

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Navigating through forests where every path looks the same poses a challenge for robot localisation in these natural environments. Robot localisation, i.e. determining position and orientation, is crucial for autonomous tasks like monitoring, exploration and critical search and rescue operations in GPS-degraded areas. Lack of distinctive features and environmental changes lead to potential errors and often failures if relying on model-based techniques. To address these issues, this project aims to incorporate deep-learning based approaches that combine information from different sources, …

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

This project investigates the effect of lithium-ion battery fires (e.g. e-scooters) on the fire resistance of load bearing light gauge steel-framed buildings. This desktop review will be conducted on lithium-ion battery types and materials, fire intensity, fire resistance of buildings, and building performance from fire incidents worldwide, etc. Based on the review, heat transfer models will be developed for possible building fire scenarios (two or three case studies) incorporating lithium-ion battery fire intensity (i.e. maximum temperature and fire duration). The …

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

The need for fire safe buildings has emerged due to the increased bushfire attacks in many parts of the world. The walls are considered important as they act as barriers to fire propagation. This project will investigate the fire resistant performance of blocks made of foam concrete to construct internal and external wall panels for buildings against standard fire and bushfire resistance. The performance will be summarised based on the elevated thermal properties of foam concrete at the material level …

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science

Bushfires often have detrimental impacts on both the natural and built environments. Although current building standards are in place to reduce the influence bushfire has on new buildings, existing and older residential properties are more susceptible to bushfire ignition. Identifying and restoring the most vulnerable features in existing properties can assist in reducing the property damage caused by bushfires. Implementing new technology into these risk assessments of existing bushfire-prone properties can reduce the time required and lower costs. This study …

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Background: Remote sensing the is process of measuring an object without direct contract and is usually applied in satellite or drone images. These images can be used to produce maps, which can identify water bodies, flooding, vegetation, deforestation, urban development and many other applications. The science behind the satellites and maps produces several analogies between land, space and sea with the lens of Indigenous Australian. For example, in terms ofScience: Stars can be used as a compass or as a …

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Computer Science

Research centre(s)

Centre for Data Science