Director of Study: Dr. A Asthana
Supervisor(s): Dr. P Weston
Additional information: Open to all self-funded students

Summary

Steam is the most popular way of transporting heat in industry for various heat treatment applications. There are four grades of industrial steam based on its purity: plant steam, filtered steam, clean steam and pure steam. The food and drink industry is demanding clean steam to eliminate any risks of contamination of products in contact with steam, hence there is a huge commercial opportunity for clean steam production systems. Clean steam generation will use a secondary steam loop of treated water free from impurities, exchanging heat with plant steam in primary loop. Steam production involves the recirculation of steam in the equipment which leads to a build-up of chlorides which are corrosive to the equipment, especially at higher temperatures. The efficiency of heat transfer increases at higher temperatures, however, temperatures are currently limited due to corrosion caused by chlorides.

Strategy to overcome the challenges:

(i) develop understanding of chloride-related corrosion at higher temperatures,

(ii) applying numerical modelling techniques to analyse the thermal and mechanical stresses in the steam equipment,

(iii) optimise the design numerically and analytically,

(iv) test a scaled-prototype to validate the numerical model,

(v) validate the model with an industrial-scale clean steam generator available with the industrial partner.

For more information please contact Dr. A Asthana