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In the manufacture of fully-fashioned knitted outerwear, it is usual for the garment sections to be constructed with a lower rib portion on to which is knitted a fashioned section of plain knitting. The majority of fully fashioned knitting machines are capable of producing only the plain fabric section, the rib portion being knitted separately on V-bed machines. In order to knit the plain section of the garment pieces on to the rib, each loop of the rib must be transferred to a corresponding knitting element on the fully fashioned knitting machine. It is common practice within the knitwear industry to perform this transfer manually, each loop of a slack course in the rib being impaled on to a point of a magazine bar, the excess courses of knitting being unroved as waste. The loops are then transferred from this bar, via a feeding bar on to the knitting elements of the fully-fashioned machine. This manual transfer of the loops is both tedious and expensive in terms of labour. However, there are recently developed machines on the market which will knit the rib and transfer it automatically to a magazine bar but they are both expensive and also render the existing plant obsolete. This thesis describes the concept, design and development of a novel patented automatic rib transfer system which relies on the relatively inexpensive modification of existing V-bed knitting machines. The modifications are aimed at providing a sub-assembly attachment suitable for a variety of V-bed knitting machines. Bars loaded automatically by these modified machines may be fed to any fully-fashioned knitting machine via a specially developed "gauge-changing" device to alter the pitch of the loops from that of the V-bed machine to that of the fully-fashioned machine. These automatically loaded bars may also be used to feed either a modern semi-automatic "linking system", such as the Boehringer Autolinker, or, in certain cases a conventional linking dial. NOTE. The term 'rib transfer' is used in the context of this thesis to describe the operation of transferring a knitted rib from a V-bed knitting machine to a straight bar knitting machine.

Squeeze casting is a process which has the potential to produce castings with exceptional mechanical properties. It also appears to be the most suitable route to produce sound cast metal matrix composites. An investigation was carried out into the squeeze casting of four zinc–aluminium alloys: commercial ZAS (simple eutectic alloy); commercial ZA12 (simple eutectic alloy); commercial ZA27 (peritectic alloy); binary Zn-37Al (solid solution alloy). Although the three commercial alloys can be cast by a variety of conventional gravity and pressure processes it was considered that squeeze casting would produce castings with more homogeneous microstructures and enhanced room temperature properties. The binary Zn-37Al was considered to be a suitable alloy for squeeze casting.

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The industry sector accounts for a high share of the final energy consumption, with industries in EU-28accounting for a quarter of the final energy demand. Studies also show that 45 % of the industrial heatdemand in EU-27 is in a temperature range that can be supplied with present day solar collectors. Despitethis large potential, solar heat faces obstacles hindering its growth in the industrial sector. The mostsignificant obstacle is the low insight of the industrial system designs and energy demands. Those arecrucial factors for the feasibility and dimensioning of solar heating systems. Three case studies aretherefore conducted in dairy and pharmaceutical plants in order to review the most promising integrationpoints for parabolic trough solar collectors in terms of annual heat demand, temperature level andintegration effort. Two case studies are performed in dairy plants and one in a pharmaceutical plant, alllocated in Sweden. The analyses comprised reviewing energy mappings, process and instrumentationdiagrams of processes and boiler systems, and hourly energy demand data. Simulations have beencarried out with Polysun for the processes with hourly energy data available.Four integration points have been determined to be high priority solar heat integration points in dairyplants, when considering annual thermal energy demand, temperature levels and integration effort.Those are the low pressure steam line, heating of feedwater, clean in place systems and pasteurizers.Solar heat integration concepts have been presented for all the aforementioned heat sinks andsimulations have been conducted for the low pressure steam line and heating of feedwater. A significantamount of excess heat is produced as a result of fluctuating heat demands and peak solar heat productionhours. Further investigation should be carried out, in order to review the potential of supplying excessheat to other heat sinks. Despite the reviewed potential of the clean in place systems and pasteurizers,lack of the hourly energy demand has hindered further analyses of those systems. It is thereforerecommended to conduct energy measurements before taking further measures.Two integration points have been identified in the pharmaceutical plant, namely autoclaves andmultiple-effect distillers. Solar steam generation concepts have been presented for both processes. Theautoclaves are provided with 4,5 bar steam intermittently, as they work with batches and can have ondutyand off-duty intervals ranging from 3-30 minutes. The multiple-effect distillers are providedwith 7 bar steam, which is of rather high pressure for the solar collectors model on which thesimulations are based. The heat demand of the distillers is more or less constant.It was generally easier to acquire data for the integration points at the supply level. For instance, all heatsinks at the supply level had energy demand data available, contrary to the process level. This inclinesadditional focus on integration to the supply level, if the extent of the feasibility study is to be kept to aminimum.

Student Number : 9400913V - MSc (Eng) dissertation - School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / Natural zeolites are finding applicability in a broad range of industrial processes. This study assesses the potential applications of a South African natural zeolite, Clinoptilolite, and develops a methodology to quickly screen and assess these applications. Zeolites are known to have ion exchange and adsorption properties. Wastewater treatment has been identified as a potentially important opportunity in South Africa, since South Africa - and particularly Gauteng - is a water scarce region. The wastewater treatment industry in this region can be divided into two main categories of effluent: namely chemicals from coal and the metal recovery and finishing related to the mining industry. The focus of this work was to find a method to screen for potential uses of Clinoptilolite in these industries. The major effluent treatment issue in respect of the effluents from coal-based processes was identified to be the removal of oxygenate organics that are highly soluble in water, such as ethanol and acetone. This problem cannot be solved using vapour-liquid equilibrium based processes due to high energy costs, and liquid-liquid equilibrium based processes inherently introduce new contaminants into the wastewater. We therefore screened the zeolite for application in the removal of soluble organics via adsorption. The zeolite was found to be unsuitable for the adsorption of acetone and ethanol due to the preferential adsorption of water. As a result we tested the potential of the zeolite as a drying agent for ethanol and acetone. It was found that this zeolite could find application in the dehydration of ethanol, but not acetone. In effluent from the mining and metals based industries, heavy metals frequently occur and are usually toxic, such as lead, zinc and nickel. Such contaminated water must be disposed of as toxic waste, and this is very costly. Thus being able to selectively remove these metals allows for the possible recovery and recycling of a potentially valuable metal. If no application can be found for the recovered metal, the loaded zeolite would need to be disposed of as toxic waste, but the volume of this waste is significantly smaller than that of the original effluent due to the concentration effect of ion exchange processes. All of the metals were ion exchanged onto the zeolite successfully. The zeolite exhibited exceptional selectivity for the removal of lead, and reduced the concentration of lead in the water to levels below detection by Atomic Adsorption. The selectivity for the uptake of the metals in decreasing order was lead, zinc and lastly nickel. Therefore, provided the zeolite can be regenerated, it could be used for effluent treatment in mining activities that have traces of lead in the ore body, such as zinc and silver deposits, and in the battery industry. As a result of the work presented in this dissertation, a further project was undertaken to investigate the regeneration of the zeolite. Preliminary findings indicate that although it can be regenerated, the zeolite capacity decreases with each successive regeneration cycle. More work is required on regeneration to improve the lifespan of the zeolite.

For industrial processes high availability and efficiency are important goals in plant operation. This thesis presents studies and development of tools for on-line treatment of process deterioration and model and sensor errors in order to achieve these goals. Deterioration of measurement devices, process components and process models has caused economical losses, plant failure and human losses. The development of on-line methods to prevent such losses is of special interest and has been conducted at The Department of Energy Technology, Mälardalen University. Important technological obstacles to implementing automatic on-line methods have been identified, such as data selection for adaptation and adaptation of data-driven models to new states. A new method has been developed for decision support by combining artificial intelligence methods and heat and mass balance models, and concepts are proposed for decision support in order to detect developing faults and to conduct appropriate maintenance actions. The methods have been implemented in simulation environment and evaluated on real process data when available. The results can be sumarised as successful development of a decision support method on a steam turbine by combining artificial neural networks and Bayesian networks, and identification of important obstacles for automation of methods for adaptation of heat and mass balance process models and data-driven models when they are subject to deterioration.

Work described in this thesis is concerned with localisation techniques, for determining the position, of wireless sensors whilst these are immersed in confined industrial processes, such as those occurring in the chemical, pharmaceutical and food processing industries. Two different approaches to localisation were investigated. The first approach employed an existing hardware system that used ultra wide band (UWB) signals whist the second approach used a network localisation method based on information from narrow-band received signals. A prototype UWB-based localisation algorithm processed experimental received UWB pulses to detect their leading edges (LE) that were used to derive Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA) data. In turn TDoA data were converted into distances and used to compute the locations of the sensor nodes. Nevertheless, the process of detecting the LEs caused significant errors in the localisation process. To deal with this problem new automated adaptive LE detection methods were derived that succeeded in reducing localisation errors by half, compared to the prototype method, reaching accuracies of ±2cm. Thorough analysis of TDoA profiles revealed that these follow specific trends depending on the positions of the sensor nodes. A number of properties of TDoA profiles are proved mathematically and incorporated into seven localisation algorithms. These algorithms were examined using experimental TDoA data and shown to achieve average localisation errors up to 3cm. Network-based localisation was examined at a later stage of this research since complexities of large scale measurements and difficulties with equipment, delayed acquiring experimental data. The deployed network consisted of a number of nodes whose positions were known (anchors) that were used to estimate the positions of sensor nodes whose positions where considered to be unknown. Localisation was based on received signal strength (RSS) data, at every node to be localised, in anticipation that RSS could provide distance information that could be used in the localisation procedure. Nevertheless, fluctuations in RSS only allowed using localisation algorithms that associated RSS to the positions of anchors. The average localisation error in the network-based localisation algorithms was between 30cm to 100cm.

The industrial sector not only has a big contribution to global emissions but also a low share of renewable energy for heat demand. Knowing that most of the energy consumption in industry is heat and that half of it is at medium-low temperature (below 400 ºC), it is a great market for the integration of solar thermal technologies. Following the criteria of high heat demand and low-temperature requirements, five promising industrial sectors and their processes have been analysed: food and beverage, paper and pulp, chemical, textile and mining. Steam generation at supply level has been considered one of the most promising systems considering its integration advantages and the potential of direct steam generation plants. The market potential study has been geographically determined performing an MCA; countries all over the world have been assessed considering their heat consumption in the promising sectors and other conditions that enhance the SHIP feasibility such as solar radiation levels, favourable energy policies, previous experience in SHIP plants, ease of doing business, etc. The price of natural gas has been also considered after selecting Europe as a suitable market. The potential heat demand that this technology could cover has been estimated considering limitations as the competitiveness with other renewable heat sources, the expected heat recovery potential for some sectors, the solar fraction of the region and roof space of the factories. The results show that the five countries with bigger potential are Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, and Spain, while the sectors with the most suitable market are food and beverage, and chemical. A case study has been selected based on the previous conclusions: a Fresnel direct steam generation plant in Sevilla (Spain) characterized thanks to the data provided by the company Solatom. The plant has been modelled using the software TRNSYS, taking special consideration in the Fresnel performance, the dynamic steam drum behaviour and its influence on the start-up time of the plant. The results achieved through the techno-economic analysis show that parameters such as solar radiation, conventional fuel prices and EU ETS prices have a major impact on the economic indicators. A sensitivity analysis shows that locations with radiation levels above 1750 kWh/m2 have positive values for NPV, and above 2250 kWh/m2 the cost of generating solar heating (LCOH) is under European natural gas prices. In addition to this, fuel prices above 50 €/MWh, which are common for SMEs, results in payback periods under 10 years. Future trends depict favourable scenarios as current European policies are causing a rapid growth of the ETS. Therefore, solar heat in industrial processes can be a feasible alternative, or work as a complement, to conventional systems. Its deployment is driven by supportive policies, high radiation levels, costly fuels prices (such as the ones for SMEs) and the necessity of reducing GHG emissions and decrease the independence on fossil energies. / Industrisektorn har inte bara ett stort bidrag till globala utsläpp utan också en låg andel förnybar energi för värmebehov. Att veta att det mesta av energiförbrukningen i industrin är värme och att hälften av den är vid medelhög låg temperatur (under 400ºC), är det en fantastisk marknad för integration av solvärmeteknik. Enligt kriterierna för högt värmebehov och lågtemperaturkrav har fem lovande industrisektorer och deras processer analyserats: mat och dryck, papper och massa, kemikalier, textil och gruvdrift. Ånggenerering på leveransnivå har ansetts vara ett av de mest lovande systemen med tanke på dess integrationsfördelar och potentialen hos direkta ånggenereringsanläggningar. Marknadspotentialstudien har fastställts geografiskt med en MCA; länder över hela världen har bedömts med tanke på deras värmeförbrukning i de lovande sektorerna och andra förhållanden som förbättrar SHIP-genomförbarheten, såsom solstrålningsnivåer, gynnsam energipolitik, tidigare erfarenhet av SHIP-anläggningar, lätt att göra affärer etc. Priset på naturgas har också övervägs efter valet av Europa som en lämplig marknad. Det potentiella värmebehovet som denna teknik kan täcka har uppskattats med tanke på begränsningar som konkurrenskraft med andra förnybara värmekällor, den förväntade värmeåtervinningspotentialen för vissa sektorer, solfraktionen i regionen och fabrikernas takutrymme. Resultaten visar att de fem länderna med större potential är Tyskland, Frankrike, Nederländerna, Italien och Spanien, medan de sektorer som har den mest lämpliga marknaden är mat och dryck samt kemikalier. En fallstudie har valts utifrån de tidigare slutsatserna: en Fresnel-ångproduktionsanläggning i Sevilla (Spanien) som kännetecknas av uppgifterna från företaget. Anläggningen har modellerats med hjälp av programvaran TRNSYS, med särskild hänsyn till Fresnel-prestanda, det dynamiska ångtrummans beteende och dess inflytande på anläggningens starttid. De resultat som uppnåtts genom den tekno-ekonomiska analysen visar att parametrar som solstrålning, konventionella bränslepriser och EU: s ETS-priser har stor inverkan på de ekonomiska indikatorerna. En känslighetsanalys visar att platser med strålningsvärden över 1750 kWh/m2 har positiva värden för NPV och över 2250 kWh/m2 är kostnaden för att generera solvärme (LCOH) under europeiska naturgaspriser. Utöver detta leder bränslepriser över 50 €/MWh, som är vanliga för små och medelstora företag, till återbetalningsperioder under tio år. Framtida trender visar gynnsamma scenarier eftersom europeisk politik orsakar en snabb tillväxt på ETS. Därför kan solvärme i industriella processer vara ett genomförbart alternativ eller fungera som ett komplement till konventionella system. Dess utplacering drivs av stödjande politik, höga strålningsnivåer, dyra bränslepriser (som de för små och medelstora företag) och behovet av att minska växthusgasutsläppen och minska självständigheten för fossila energier.