Modelling, Simulation and Optimization to save Energy
Climate change has acquired an increased importance – in society as well as politics. Pupils participate in the continually growing „Fridays for Future“ movement and The Greens – EFA (the green group of the European Parliament) were historically successful in the latest European election.
And Academia is also participating!
Hello, we – Nicolas Dietrich and Thomas Marx- are PhD students at the TU Kaiserslautern and we contribute in this sustainable development by being part of the EHFo project.
It has been known that „the [energy] transition will only be a success story if the consumption of fossil-fuel can be significantly reduced“, see EHFo project. We support this reduction by optimizing high temperature processes in the industry which account for 36% of the energy consumption in Germany. This is done by optimizing the geometry of melting furnaces by applying tools from shape optimization. We are supported by The Bundesministry for Education and Research which funds this project over three years.
Before one can apply these tools, one has to model the process at hand. For our model we are using hierarchical approximations of the Radiative Heat Transfer Equation. Additionally we take account of the convection governed by the velocity field generated by the Navier-Stokes Equations.
Collaborating with other research groups and our industry partner ICL gives us the possibility to experience first hand how the abstract concepts from shape optimization have an impact on real life problems. We are thankful for additional opportunities like taking a look at the real furnace.
In our daily workflow is rich in variety. We not only do mathematics but gain programming experience by doing scientific computing. Apart from our research we organize tutorials and also work as tutors. This was especially important to us since tutoring accompanied us during our time as students and we enjoy working with students.
Please feel free to contact us for more information via email:
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