Kurka R. Justification of fuel pellets manufacturing technology from hardwood waste

Research object - fuel pellets manufacturing technological process of crushed wood waste in woodworking industry. Goal - creation of effective granulation technology from solid hardwood waste, which provides justification of the technological equipment parameters and development it's rational modes of operation. Methods - analytical methods of mathematical physics; experimental: weight, contact thermometry, noncontact radiation thermometry, fuzzy set theory, statistical analysis. Scientific novelty. For the first time, was offered the granulator forecasting performance system with flat die, which is based on fuzzy inference tree that takes into account granulator structural parameters, its technical configuration and characteristics of raw materials. A new mathematical dependences for determination of geometrical parameters and evaluation performance limits of a flat channel matrix pellet was suggested. This helped to extend the term of its operation. On quality scores obtained on fuel pellets, for the first time, was assigned the influence of hardwood waste characteristics, technological regimes of granulation process and structural parameters of the flat die pellet. Practical significance: It was developed the methods of calculation to determine compaction characteristics of shredded hardwood as a raw material for granulation, and to predict compaction characteristics of different wood species mixtures. Software implementation of forecasting performance of a flat die pellet allows to select a series of process configuration that will provide maximum performance for the given conditions of the appropriate quality level of derived wood fuel pellets. It was developed an expert system for automated configuration knowledge base about the granulation process, which enables to adapt the method to performance evaluation of different pellet types. The main results of the thesis is used to improve the technology of fuel pellets production from hardwood on SE "Sorensen and Haar" (Lviv, Ukraine). Application area: woodworking.