Development of a combustion process calculation program for engineer training

Abstract

In this work, a computer tool called Combus SW has been developed in order to support andaccompany the learning of combustion processes of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels in theuniversity environment. This tool covers elementary concepts of general chemistry (such as:moles, treatment of monatomic elements used to measure quantities or compositions of fuels),exothermic chemical reactions and combustion of stoichiometric mixtures including moist airin the reaction. Among other aspects, with Combus SW is possible to study complete,incomplete, theoretical combustion, with excess and defect of air.Combus SW is developed to run under the Hewlett Packard Platform, that is, on aprogrammable calculator that is widely used in advanced courses in the different fields ofengineering. In the development of Combus SW special emphasis has been placed onfacilitating student learning, using informative menus, but not overloaded, and above all,showing in detail the entire analysis process step by step without hiding intermediateinformation. Therefore, this tool pursues two clear goals, which are: to accompany learning andverify the calculations by hand that the student performs.