Projects
Projects: Projects for Investigator |
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| Reference Number | 2002-12-84-1-5 | |
| Title | Energy Efficient Kilns | |
| Status | Completed | |
| Energy Categories | Energy Efficiency(Industry) 100%; | |
| Research Types | Applied Research and Development 100% | |
| Science and Technology Fields | BIOLOGICAL AND AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES (Biological Sciences) 50%; ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering) 50%; |
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| UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation | Not Cross-cutting 100% | |
| Principal Investigator |
Dr E Ho No email address given The Fluid Engineering Centre BHR Group Ltd |
|
| Award Type | 3 | |
| Funding Source | Carbon Trust | |
| Start Date | 01 October 2003 | |
| End Date | 30 September 2005 | |
| Duration | 24 months | |
| Total Grant Value | £109,382 | |
| Industrial Sectors | ||
| Region | East of England | |
| Programme | ||
| Investigators | Principal Investigator | Dr E Ho , The Fluid Engineering Centre, BHR Group Ltd (99.999%) |
| Other Investigator | Project Contact , Forestry Commission GB (0.001%) |
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| Web Site | ||
| Objectives | The aim is to reduce CO2 emissions from industrial timber kilns by 25 through the development of a heat treatment methodology which includes a novel prediction model for determining the temperature rise in different timber species. The results will also help the UK timber industry comply with international legislation being implemented this year that requires all packaging wood (pallets, boxes, dunnage, etc) to be heat-treated for 30 minutes at 56 C in the core of the wood. | |
| Abstract | Innovative energy efficient kiln-based heat treatment (HT) techniques are urgently needed for manufacturers of timber products to comply with new international legislation aimed at the eradication of pests and pathogens. Without these innovations the industry is likely to increase energy use (and CO2 emissions) or even worse switch to cheaper, yet more energy intensive alternatives, such as plastics. The project will develop a methodology to predict the optimum heating conditions for a HT chamber (kiln) and the timber materials being heat treated. The method will calculate the rate of heat transfer through timber of different sizes. It will be based on a thorough understanding of the thermal diffusivity of timber (a function of tree species, dimensions, moisture content, densities, initial timber temperatures, etc) gained through data collected from extensive laboratory and industrial experiments. The work will result in a modelling tool which potentially can be used to optimise the operation of industrial kilns in real time. To achieve this it will need to be integrated within the control technologies of kilns. This integration will be the next step should this initial phase be successful. Armed with this information, and knowledge of the heat flow within a kiln, kiln operators in future will be able to optimise their operations, reducing energy costs and CO2 emissions by up to 25 . The specific challenges addressed in this work are: to establish the heat transfercharacteristics of a variety of timber species; to then develop a generic predictive model based on data from the small-scale kilns; to carry out measurements on industrial-scale kilns to determine the sensitivity of the HT cycle to kiln operation; to establish scale-up rules for the model; finally, to validate the model by running a kiln using the heating cycle proposed by the model | |
| Publications | (none) |
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| Final Report | (none) |
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| Added to Database | 01/01/07 | |
