Thermal Management in Polymer Processing

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Industry)

Basic and strategic applied research
Applied Research and Development

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor E Harkin-Jones
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Queen's University Belfast

Standard

EPSRC

31 March 2010

30 March 2013

36 months

£424,868

Process engineering

Northern Ireland

Energy : Energy

Professor E Harkin-Jones, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queen's University Belfast

Dr K Li, Electronics, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Queen's University Belfast
Professor M Price, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queen's University Belfast

Project Contact, Brett Martin Ltd
Project Contact, TSM Control Systems, Ireland
Project Contact, All-Island Polymer & Plastic Network
Project Contact, Tangram Technology Ltd

Linked to grant EP/G059330/1

The U.K is one of the top 5 plastics processing countries in Europe with a turnover of 19 billion accounting for 2.1% of GDP (equivalent to the metals industry). The industry is made up of 7,400 companies falling mainly into the SME category.The sector is growing year on year as more traditional materials are being replaced by plastics, for example, in the construction industry a 6 million tonnesusage in 2004 is projected to grow to 8 million tonnes in 2010 while in the automotive industry the typical car now contains 10% plastic by weight.For a typical UK plastics company the electricity bill is usually between 1 and 3% of turnover, which amounts to 380 million per annum for the UK (this is only electricity costs - 80% of polymer processors in the UK use both electricityand gas). A reduction in electricity usage of 10% would result in savings of 38 million per annum and a significant reduction in environmental burden. There are many areas in a typical polymerprocessing plant where energy use could be reduced. A prime example is in the extrusion area where machines running at non-optimised conditions and without proper control systems in place can account for 15-20% of overallprocess energy losses. The cooling of polymer parts is also a prime area for consideration with chiller systems running at non-optimised temperatures and flow rates. It is evident from the figures for the polymer industry that there is a need to improve energy efficiencywithin the industry but for any energy management system to be effective measures must be taken to optimise the whole plant andnot just isolated pieces of equipment. For this reason, this proposal will apply a whole systems approach to attaining energy efficiency within the polymer processing industry by developing a software based, Energy Management Tool (EMT). This approach will be complemented by the development of process monitoring and control technologies to optimise energy use in extrusion

14/09/09