Aston University is collaborating with an engineering firm to reduce the environmental impact of industrial gas burners.
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MD Paul Collier, KTP Associate Tarun Kumar, Technical Manager Aidan Lewis. Image Credit: Aston University
The University and Lanemark Combustion Engineering have formed a knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) to help users of gas or propane burners lower their greenhouse gas emissions.
A KTP is a cooperative effort involving three parties: an academic partner, a company, and a highly skilled researcher who works as a KTP associate. The UK-wide initiative supports companies in increasing their productivity and competitiveness by optimizing their use of information, technology, and skills.
Aston University is a sector-leading knowledge transfer partnership provider, with 80% of completed projects rated as very excellent or outstanding by the national authority, Innovate UK.
Lanemark, situated in Warwickshire, has been delivering industrial gas burners to a variety of industries for over 40 years, including petrochemical, car plants, breweries, and food manufacturing.
The KTP’s main goal is to assist burners in making the switch to low-carbon fuels like biogas or hydrogen to comply with new environmental regulations.
Using various software applications, Lanemark has spent decades refining its burner designs. Lanemark’s engineers now have to transmit data between several software tools, which is time-intensive and inflexible, to analyze the impact of utilizing new fuels, either alone or in different mixes with natural gas or propane.
The expertise of Aston University will be pooled to develop a single software package that will calculate the effects of utilizing various fuels and incorporate them into current designs. The program will analyze variables like heat transmission, flame duration, and exhaust gases to make sure equipment is adaptable and competitive in a market that is always evolving.
We are a relatively small company in our industry, so it is important that we are not left behind by some of the bigger players. Having this new software will make us more agile in responding to new regulatory requirements and customer demands, which will keep us in a competitive position.
Aidan Lewis, Technical Manager, Lanemark Combustion Engineering
Lanemark will be able to utilize specialist resources in areas significant to the development of low-carbon industrial heating systems. These systems include heating systems, the design of burner equipment and heat transfer.
Through this knowledge transfer, Aston University will enable Lanemark to obtain the skills and knowledge required to maintain and adjust the software in the future so that it can meet the individual expectations and needs of the company’s clientele.
The company collaborates with Dr. Muhammed Imran from Aston University’s Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute and Dr. Martin Rudorfer from the School of Computer Science and Digital Technologies.
Dr. Imran is a senior lecturer in mechanical and design engineering whose research focuses on building new thermal energy systems and enhancing the energy efficiency of current ones. Dr. Rudorfer is a lecturer in applied AI and robotics with a specialization in software engineering and intelligent process automation.
Together with KTP Associate Dr. Tarun Kumar, the research team has been working to understand the new software’s requirements and how it will be utilized by various personnel inside the company.
This has allowed them to create the software’s user interface, which will provide design engineers, sales representatives, and customers access to the complicated engineering that drives the burner designs. The program is being developed using MATLAB, a well-recognized computational platform.
With fundamental research, impact can take a long time, but with a KTP, the outcomes are far more immediate. Not only will this collaborative research help Lanemark commercially, it will also significantly improve the carbon reduction potential for their products. To contribute to that is very satisfying, particularly as we will start to see the impact in just a few years.
Dr. Muhammad Imran, Senior Lecturer, Aston University
Dr. Rudorfer added, “As researchers, sometimes it can feel we are inside a research bubble and not really seeing our ideas and concepts being put into practice. My role as a computer scientist is to create the mechanism by which the engineering expertise from the University can be transferred to the company. It is great to see how a KTP like this can really make an impact with local businesses.”
At the completion of the project, the team will supply Lanemark with thorough manuals so that they can use and change the software and algorithms as needed.