ENERMAN-1
The research vision of the strategic project ENERMAN-1 deals with decreasing the energy consumption in continuous as well as batch production as a subject of extremely importance for all partner organizations. In it, the energy demand of machinery during manufacturing were investigated with respect to smoothing power peaks and lowering the total energy demand. The focus lies on reducing high energy consumption due to long process times and decreasing the high-power peaks due to acceleration of machinery components. The benefit of smoothing power peaks and lowering the total energy demand in production lies in a significant cost reduction of the process. The vision of this project is to provide a scientific output leading to a significant reduction of energy and power consumption of the production systems.
Goals
ENERMAN-1 has as its goal the detection and reduction of energy demand of produced parts in batch and continuous production systems. The research goal is to develop a standardized new energy management system within a continuous extrusion and batch production system by (i) derivation of efficiency parameters (e.g. efficiency labels, retrofit factor, …) for different manufacturing processes (subtractive, polymer extrusion) and (ii) calculate and compare different machinery at JKU Linz as well as TU Graz. To increase the (iii) understanding of influence of processing parameters on energy consumption (e.g. an optimum barrel temperature setting to polymer melt quality) will help to (iv) develop strategies for energy and power consumption reduction for typical batch and continuous production (e.g. power factor correction, peak load optimization, drive technology with excellent efficiency class, thermal insulation, split and adapted circuits for process cooling). Creation of (v) academic fundamentals are the basis for industry cooperation in future.
Approach
The research approach and method of this strategic project is focused on the ICT-supported strategies, methods and model-based control technologies by application of experimental and computational modelling within a continuous and batch production system. Key technologies will be the wireless infrastructure and data mining. Special strategies to reduce the energy consumption represent the framework of a new system that is also influenced by the results of the other Pro²Future working groups (e.g. cognitive decision making).
Expected and Achieved Results
The results of ENERMAN-1 can be summarized as follow:
A unique test system with intelligent evaluation software for continuous and batch production are installed at Living Lab for polymer extrusion and compounding at JKU Linz, for batch production within the new pilot factory at TUG with the brand name “smartfactory@tugraz”. In continuous production a new metrology method for identifying the length-based energy input in an extrusion process were developed. The new metrology method helps to identify the energy input in an extrusion process which is crucial for verification of the process simulation.
Indicators for energy efficiency for a representative set of production technologies were developed and evaluated in case studies. Based on this case studies guidelines for energy efficient product design are under progress. These guidelines developed in ENERMAN-1 will evolve the competence of the center and covers long-term industrial interests. The project results can be exploited in four business cases: (i) distributing the knowledge via training and education, (ii) providing the developed hard- and software, (iii) consultative providing the gained knowledge and (iv) performing truly-joint research cooperation projects.
