JUCHELKOVA, Dagmar, CECH, Bohumir & FIBINGER, Vratislav
VSB-TU Ostrava, 17.listopadu 15, CZ - 708 33 Ostrava - Poruba, Czech Republic, Europe
Abstract: The level of students’ education on the universities is very important. The VSB-TU Ostrava has a long tradition, the tradition of mechanical engineering faculty is longer then 50 years and the energetics department as a part of this faculty has a long tradition too.
Last 20 years try the heads of the department to collaborate with the praxis, because of the close contact between the industry and the university students.
The solution of many grants on the energetics department will be made with the close collaboration among department, industry and students. One of this example is the combustion of various fuels in the industry boilers.
Keywords: praxis, collaboration, students education, tradition
Areas of research of the Energetics Department are especially oriented on the problems of fuel combustion, the ecological use of primary and secondary raw materials, co-generation units with different types of gaseous fuels including biomasses, the minimisation of discharges gaseous and solid harmful substances from energetic processes. A not to be forgotten activity of Energetics Department is the possibility to use alternative and renewable sources of energy (wind, water, sun, biomass), the diagnostics of rotating energy sources-turbines, compressors and pumps. We also provide consulting in the area of diagnostics of energetic equipment and environment.
The Energetics Department has recently being concentrating on applied research in burning equipment, particularly in the area of high capacity energy equipment.
One of the collaboration possibilities is the utilization of biofuels. The students made a lost of final work on this field.
In the past, biomass as a energy source was almost only one usable energy which had accompanied man since the past until the last century. The development of civilization, industrial revolution and mechanization of production have led to an enormous growth of consumption of all kinds of energy and recoverable sources of energy have become insufficient. The second half of the twentieth century has seen the trend directed towards the decreased consumption of energies and mitigation of unfavourable impacts of high consumption on the environment. One of many opportunities arises from the use of recoverable sources of energy and it is the utilization of biomass as a supplementary source of energy. In our climatic conditions, of particular concern is the utilization of timber as biomass.
Because of the high unemployed young people number is necessary, that the preparation (university education) of students is close in collaboration with industry executed. The students should know the industry singularity. One of the exams is the collaboration for minimising the emissions in the combustion process, especially in the fluidised bed.
In the Czech Republic are now builds new energetics units, which can not be scan only with one person. The students help by research work on such units and learn not only the technical work, but also the firm and a lot of students this way they next employer.
Since the first beginnings of combustion processes of fossil fuels there have been attempts to burn together the timber material with coal. Even today, the dried up waste wood is used for ignition in majority types of stoker-fired boilers.
From the viewpoint of a choice of a suitable type of combustion equipment that would be capable to burn together the timber material, the following group of additional operational systems should be solved:
At present, solid fossil fuels are burnt on the following types of grates:
Possibilities for the reconstruction of the particular types of boilers depend primarily on:
Within the framework of research activities conducted at the Department of Energetics at VSB- Technical University of Ostrava, the students are involved in research split into the particular phases.
Within the framework of dissertations of engineer and bachelorship studies, the students have been assigned to the relevant research programmes primarily with regard to the fact that the approach of man to the given problem who is not "overloaded" with the detailed specialized knowledge in the given field can be surprisingly creative.
This principle is also applied by the industrial companies that appreciate the co-operation from the side of students, especially from those in their final year of studies, while attempting to find out new solutions. Evidently, not all solutions suggested by students are usable and in many cases only some solutions are viable.
Clearly, this co-operation is advantageous for students. Often, for the first time in their lives they have to face the problem how to cope with the particular technical issues and that they are not expected to focus on more or less simple "school" tasks. In some cases, the students get their chance and their suggestions are realized, and/or they get explanations why their ideas cannot be implemented in practice.
The students during the research stage into a problem have come to conclusion that the primary measures oriented to the environmental protection are very advantageous both from the environmental and economic standpoint. The fact that ecology, energy and economy have the same first letter in their names almost in all languages has been shown to them in practice.
In the light of future involvement of students in work at the industrial companies it seems almost inevitable for them to become familiarised with a daily work at these companies, not only through visits or through specialized lectures. In many cases, the students have a rather vague idea of “an usual working day” of employees at an industrial enterprise and the students ideas may greatly differ from the reality.
Moreover, based on our experience the utilization of measuring equipment used in a daily practice, not only at the University’s laboratories seems very important and it offers our students to carry out the measurements on real power generation units. However, this fact brings problems in the connection with the organisation of the course of studies and employment at the industrial company.
However, the advantage for both sides was explained (the Department of Energetics was successful with its efforts at several industrial companies) and the problem with safety of students at the enterprises has been solved and it is clearly shown that such preparations have contributed to a better involvement of students in practice, the period of acquirement of necessary training has required a shorter time even in situations when students have acquired a managerial post at a company.
No emissions of SO2 occur during the combustion process of timber material and sulphur is not bound even of a slight quantity of ash produced (this bond occurs in the case of fossil fuels) which may be further used as fuel. The quantity of fuel nitrogen falling on 1 MNWh of heat is lower at burning the timber material in comparison with brown coal. Then due to this reason the production of NOx is lower. The contents of molecular nitrogen affects the origin of thermic NOx. It depends on the burning temperature and on the time of contact of reacting substances. The restriction of the quantity of produced NOx may be affected by a construction (a reconstruction) of furnaces.
The Grant Agency of the Czech Republic sponsors the project of the combined combustion process of biomass and coal and it is registered under no. 101/96/1152 and VS 97149.