Thermal Academy Where every kcal counts
i-Kcal Thermal AcademyWhere every kcal counts

Steam, hot water & thermic fluid, learnt the practical way.

A free, open classroom for plant engineers, energy managers and students — the fundamentals of industrial heat, taught from working practice: how it behaves, how to select it, how to size it, and what it costs when it leaks. No login. No jargon without a definition. Every lesson ends at something you can do on the plant tomorrow.

Start at 100° — why steam runs industry Browse the curriculum
  • 75lessons
  • 7faculties
  • 20schematics
  • 15calculators
  • Freeno login
Live, not a picture — drag the pressure. Teaching values (IF97); the same curve opens lesson A3.
  1. 100°Basicswhere water becomes steam — the physics you can read off a gauge
  2. 200°Systemsboilers, mains, traps, valves, recovery — how the plant fits together
  3. 300°Deep-divessizing, economics, codes and the clinic — the specifier's and the auditor's lessons

Lessons are numbered like temperatures. Start anywhere — every page defines its terms and links its neighbours. The academy is young and growing; lessons marked soon are on the drawing board.

The seven faculties

Steam Basics

What steam is, why industry runs on it, and how to read its numbers — the ground every other lesson stands on.
100°12 lessons · 12 live

The Boiler House

Boilers, fuels, feedwater, blowdown, controls and IBR — where steam is made and where most money is won or lost.
200°11 lessons · 11 live

Steam Distribution

Pipes, pressure reduction, drainage, insulation and leaks — getting steam to the process dry and at the right pressure.
200°13 lessons · 13 live

Using Steam & Getting It Back

Heat exchange, control valves, traps, condensate and flash recovery — the using half of the loop, and the recovering half.
200°13 lessons · 13 live

Hot Water & Thermic Fluid

The other heat carriers — pressurised hot water and hot oil — and how to choose between them and steam.
200°7 lessons · 7 live

Efficiency & Recovery

The economics: what steam truly costs, where it is wasted, and the recovery technologies that pay — including deep-dives.
300°13 lessons · 13 live

The Clinic — Troubleshooting & Reliability

Diagnosis-first: start from the symptom on the plant floor, reason back to the physics, then fix the cause — trap failures, surveys, stall, pumping and the ways steam systems eat themselves.
300°6 lessons · 6 live

The full curriculum

Faculty A — Steam Basics

Faculty B — The Boiler House

Faculty C — Steam Distribution

Faculty D — Using Steam & Getting It Back

Faculty E — Hot Water & Thermic Fluid

Faculty F — Efficiency & Recovery

Faculty G — The Clinic — Troubleshooting & Reliability

Calculators, not just theory

Alongside the lessons runs the i-Kcal Steam Tools suite — fifteen working calculators from steam properties and line sizing to leak cost and flash recovery. Free tools are embedded right inside the lessons that teach them; the full suite lives on the Tools page.

What this academy is — and is not

It is free, open, and vendor-neutral: the physics works the same whoever supplies your valves. It is written from i-Kcal's own working practice, from scratch, with every claim carrying its basis. It is not a product brochure — where an i-Kcal technology is the honest answer to a lesson's problem, you will find one clearly-marked link, and no more. Worked figures are teaching values on public rates — for design decisions, measure your own plant and use certified data.