Description du projet :
The field of this project is high temperature industrial processes, which represent an important share of overal energy consumption (ca.10%), usually show high energy cost for the concerned industries (>1'000'000 CHF/yr on a single site), but also have an impact on their CAPEX and OPEX in terms of equipment operating at high temperature and its maintenance/lifetime/hazards. Insufficient monitoring or control of processes, and ageing or failing equipment lead to substantial waste heat losses for these producers/users. Reducing these heat losses will improve their competitiveness by reducing their energy bills and maintenance/repair costs, and could increase their productivity, efficiency, and product quality. In addition, this will often limit CO2 emissions and other environmental impact of these industries, for which they may be taxed, hence saving tax cost. High temperature industrial processes are not often optimized because of their complexity, uneasy access, unavailability of direct loss measurements and lack of predictive maintenance. From experience, substantial energy savings (10-20%) can be achieved by relatively simple low cost measures - if properly located.
The aim of this project is to help these industries by proposing a novel heat flux sensor capable of being deployed in challenging industrial environments (200-1000°C). In addition to temperature indication only, a heat flux sensor directly quantifies heat loss (in W/m2) at locations of interest in the high temperature process, opening the way to better process monitoring and process control, to the surveillance/detection of potential defects or anomalies, and to conditional maintenance of equipment or component parts.
We see applications in: steel making, metallurgical foundries; glass making; cement; chemical plants, oil and gas industry; incineration; power plants; engines, heat exchangers, furnaces, gas turbines, boilers, etc.; even the watch industry expressed interest in such sensors.
Research team within HES-SO:
Rey-Mermet Samuel
, Joris Steve
, Sallem Haifa
, Cinna Adeline
Partenaires académiques: Jan Van Erle, EPFL-Sion
Partenaires professionnels: Confidentiel, Confidentiel Suisse
Durée du projet:
01.03.2021 - 28.02.2023
Montant global du projet: 700'000 CHF
Statut: Ongoing
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