The continued growth and evolving lifestyles of the human population require the urgent development of sustainable production in all its aspects. Microalgae have the potential of the sustainable production of various commodities; however, the energetic requirements of algae cultivation still largely contribute to the overall negative balance of many operation plants. Here, we evaluate energetic efficiency of biomass and lipids production by Chlorella pyrenoidosa in multi-tubular, helical-tubular, and flat-panel airlift pilot scale photobioreactors, placed in an indoor environment of greenhouse laboratory in Central Europe. Our results show that the main energy consumption was related to the maintenance of constant light intensity in the flat-panel photobioreactor and the culture circulation in the helical-tubular photobioreactor. The specific power input ranged between 0.79 W L⁻¹ in the multi-tubular photobioreactor and 6.8 W L⁻¹ in the flat-panel photobioreactor. The construction of multi-tubular photobioreactor allowed for the lowest energy requirements but also predetermined the highest temperature sensitivity and led to a significant reduction of Chlorella productivity in extraordinary warm summers 2018 and 2019. To meet the requirements of sustainable yearlong microalgal production in the context of global change, further development towards hybrid microalgal cultivation systems, combining the advantages of open and closed systems, can be expected.

One of the negative technological factors that often have a significant impact on the environment is the leakage of operating media (so-called fugitive emissions), which most often occurs at different separable joints. Therefore, high demands are placed on the joints – they must have sufficient strength to maintain pressure and other loads and also be tight enough to avoid undesired leaks. For a large part of such joints, standard flanges or flanges designed according to standards are used, in the European Union in particular according to EN 1092-1, EN 1591-1 and EN 13445-3. Although the strength of such flanges is sufficient for most applications, the basic design methods do not cover the tightness of flange joints and their emissions completely. A case inspired by industrial practice with a history of insufficient tightness resulting in leaks is investigated using FEA and EN 1591. The flange joint is modelled in software ANSYS 2019 R2 with parts of adjacent shells to take their effect into account. The goal of the analyses is estimation of gasket contact pressures resulting from load history. The pressures are directly related to the seal tightness. Lastly, effect of shell shape modification on the gasket pressures is also investigated and the results are compared with those from the original configuration. Effects of resulting pressures on seal tightness are discussed.

Industrial boiler damage is a common phenomenon encountered in boiler operation which usually lasts several decades. Since boiler shutdown may be required because of localized failures, it is crucial to predict the most vulnerable parts. If damage occurs, it is necessary to perform root cause analysis and devise corrective measures (repairs, design modifications, etc.). Boiler tube bundles, such as those in superheaters, preheaters and reheaters, are the most exposed and often the most damaged boiler parts. Both short-term and long-term overheating are common causes of tube failures. In these cases, the design temperatures are exceeded, which often results in decrease of remaining creep life. Advanced models for damage evaluation require temperature history, which is available only in rare cases when it has been measured and recorded for the whole service life. However, in most cases it is necessary to estimate the temperature history from available operation history data (inlet and outlet pressures and temperatures etc.). The task may be very challenging because of the combination of complex flow behaviour in the flue gas domain and heat transfer phenomena. This paper focuses on estimating thermal load non-uniformity on superheater tubes via Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of flue gas flow including heat transfer within the domain consisting of a furnace and a part of the first stage of the boiler.

The recent trend in the steam and electricity production has been both to increase the efficiency of the facility and to keep tightening legislation concerning emission limits. The lifetime of energy equipment is greatly influenced by the operating temperature, pressure and operating characteristics. The new conditions lead the operator to more often changes of these parameters, which has negative influence to the facility in terms of service life. Precise knowledge of the facility being operated and the ability to predict the residual life of its key parts in time is therefore necessary. A new methodology for determining the residual life and evaluating problematic situations of medium size boilers was developed at Brno University of Technology. Its approaches and advantages will be presented in this paper. The methodology provides the user with approaches for the lifetime evaluation of an equipment as a whole, based on detailed knowledge of the equipment being investigated and the ongoing damage. Additionally, if the equipment is continuously evaluated, it is possible to extend the inspection interval or to achieve a significantly higher lifetime of the entire equipment, thereby reducing the economic cost. If defined criteria are met, the methodology also allows inclusion of FEM and CFD simulations for achieving higher relevance of the results.