Search

This article is the second part of the research devoted to the exergetic analysis of heat treatment processes of concrete products in heat technology installations. In the first part, the issues of calculating the exergy of a concrete mixture and hardening concrete have been considered, taking into account all the components of the exergy, viz. reaction, concentration and thermomechanical ones. In the present part of the study, exergetic criteria are proposed that make it possible to evaluate the energy efficiency of the operating modes of heat-technological equipment for the heat treatment of concrete products. These include the degree of thermodynamic perfection of a heat-power system, which is used to evaluate the completeness of the use of the exergetic input; thermodynamic efficiency of the system of heat treatment of concrete products in heat technology installations, representing the degree of thermodynamic perfection of the heat power system that is calculated without taking into account all the components of the sum of transit exergies; thermodynamic efficiency of the heat treatment system, taking into account the exergetic efficiency of the system of heat energy production and transportation; the degree of technological perfection that indicates at the portion of the exergy supplied to the heat technology installation for the heat treatment of concrete products is intended to obtain a technological result. To calculate the listed indicators and characteristics, a mathematical apparatus is proposed that takes into account the mass of the concrete product, the specific mass exergy of cement and hardening concrete, the specified degree of hydration of cement in concrete at the end of heat treatment, the exergetic flows supplied to the product in a heat technology installation during its heat treatment, and numerical indicators characterizing the incompleteness of the cement hydration process. The results obtained in this paper are discussed from the viewpoint of their applicability in the selection of heat treatment modes. They can be used in the selection of energy-saving modes of heat-technological equipment for industrial heat treatment of concrete products.

By usage of the technical and economic calculation method developed by the authors for installations with recuperative-type heat exchangers, the operational modes of the centralized supply and exhaust system of organized ventilation, in which the supplying air is heated by the solar radiation heat and the heat of the air removed from the premises, have been investigated in the paper. The paper presents results of the thermal and economic efficiency assessment of such ventilation system for multi-storey buildings. A comparison of the thermal energy consumption for the needs of heating and ventilation through the use of the proposed ventilation system has been made for two variants of buildings – with the thermal protection level of enclosing structures that meets modern regulatory requirements (buildings with heat consumption up to 130 kW×h/(m2×year)), and for a building similar in terms of planning structure, but with enclosing structures, the insulation level of which corresponds to buildings built before 1993 (buildings with heat consumption up to 260 kW×h/(m2×year)). The temperature conditions have been determined under which it becomes necessary to turn on the operation of devices for additional (peak) heating of the supply air, when the thermal potential of solar radiation and secondary energy resources is insufficient to provide the calculated temperature of the supply air. For the ventilation system under consideration, it has been established that the thermal resistance of the building envelope influences the indicators of the thermodynamic and economic efficiency of the proposed solution. The climatic conditions under which the utilization of the exhaust air heat in the proposed ventilation system is technically justified and economically expedient have been determined. The results of the research

. The results of numerical studies carried out on the basis on a mathematical model developed by the authors of this paper devoted to the investigation of the influence of various factors on the characteristics of the process of heat treatment of composite products in industrial heat technology installations in the presence of internal heat emissions distributed over the volume of individual layers of the product are presented. The formulation of boundary conditions for this model is proposed, considering the multilayer structure of products and the peculiar properties of the organization of their heat treatment process in a heat technology installation. A detailed description of the mathematical model was presented in the previous works. In this study, the functions of temperature distribution and the coefficient (degree) of hydration in the spatial regions that make up the product have been studied as characteristics of the heat treatment process. Model composite products of the same shape and structure but of different volume, consisting of two layers of material in which an exothermic hydration reaction takes place separated by a layer of expanded polystyrene were considered. The temperature-time regime of heat treatment was assumed to be close to that used in industrial conditions in the production of three-layer external wall panels. The boundary and initial conditions corresponded to the conditions of heat treatment on flat stands with water heating and sheltering products from above. It has been determined that the presence of a thermal insulation layer in the core of the product separating the layers that have an internal heat source, changes the distribution of temperature values and the hydration coefficient in the upper and lower layers significantly. An increase in the characteristic volume of the product leads to an increase in the influence of internal volumetric heat release on the processes of heating and hydration, while heat release caused by the course of the hydration reaction begins to have a decisive influence on them.

Having proven its effectiveness in finding the best options for energy supply and energy consumption the exergetic method of thermodynamic analysis of complex heat and power systems has been widely recognized in recent years. However, its application is hindered by the lack of appropriate scientific and methodological heat technology support, especially if their application involves not only transformation of energy, but also transformation of substances. Heat treatment of concrete and reinforced concrete products belongs to such technologies. This article presents new scientific results related to the development of exergetic balances of the processes of preparation of concrete mixture in a mixer and heat treatment of a concrete product in a heat-technological installation. For each of these cases, the analysis of exergetic flows was carried out, the structure of the exergy of the concrete mixture and the hardening concrete was determined. Based on the analysis of the literature data on the chemical composition of cement clinkers, cements, and hydration products, new dependences have been proposed for calculating the exergy of the concrete mixture flow and the exergy of concrete under its heat treatment, including all their components, viz. thermomechanical, reaction, and concentration constituents. Absolute energy indicators have been developed. The calculation of the mentioned values was performed on a specific example with the use of the developed scientific and methodological support. In the second part of this paper, the results of the study related to the determination of relative exergetic indicators that allow evaluating the energy efficiency of the processes of heat treatment of concrete products in heat technology installations will be published. The results obtained in this paper can be used for the selection of energy-saving modes of heat-technological equipment intended for industrial heat treatment of concrete products.

Production of concrete and reinforced concrete products in the conditions of the Republic of Belarus and in the countries with similar climatic conditions requires heat treatment in heat-technological installations in order to achieve the desired strength of the products at the appointed time, which consumes a great amount of thermal energy. In this case, the purpose of equipment operating modes is associated with a number of difficulties when it comes to new products of complex spatial configuration and structure. The optimality criteria of such modes are, as a rule, the duration and temperature limits of processing, providing the required strength with minimal energy consumption. In the conditions of serial production in the case of structurally simple objects, the assignment of heat treatment modes is carried out empirically. As the analysis shows, the modes obtained in this way do not meet the above criteria, especially from the standpoint of energy saving. The paper, using a mathematical model previously developed by the authors, proposes dependencies for calculating the optimal modes of heat treatment of concrete products that are distinguished by a complex spatial shape and multi-component structure. The method is based on three-dimensional transfer equations, taking into account internal sources of heat release due to the ongoing hydration reaction of the active components of the cement clinker, and the boundary conditions corresponding to the structure of the processed product, as well as the type of heat technology device for accelerated hydration. Equations are proposed for calculating the amount of heat energy supplied to the processed product providing a given strength at a specified time. On the example of a manufactured industrial concrete product and for the conditions of an actually used device for accelerated hydration, a comparison has been made between two limiting modes of heat treatment: with isothermal exposure and in its absence. As a result of the performed calculations, the dependences of energy consumption, temperature fields and the degree of hydration in the product for both modes have been obtained and an energy-saving mode of heat treatment corresponding to the case under consideration has been developed. It is shown that the used numerical method allows to solve problems of this type and to achieve thermal energy savings.

In the article the technique of an assessment of modes of operation of the heat engineering equipment used for heat treatment of concrete products in the conditions of programcontrolled heat supply according to the pattern of “heating – isothermal influence – cooling” has been developed. The method is based on the numerical solution of a non-stationary heat equation supplemented by equations describing the hydration process of a concrete product; also, it includes a system of initial and boundary conditions for its spatial structure. The method makes it possible to create tabulated functions of temperature and the degree of hydration of the time of heat treatment in any point of a 3D-product. The mathematical tools for calculating the functional dependencies of concrete hydration equipment with software-heated environment are presented. Numerical calculations of the concrete hydration process in the formwork are performed with respect to the symmetrical object. Based on the calculation of the temperature gradient across the minimal cross section of the product, a numerical analysis of the functions modeling heat supply mode depending on the processing time of a concrete product has been fulfilled. It is demonstrated that the maximum speed of the hydration process in a concrete product hardening is achieved at the maximum of time lag of isothermal cure. Additionally, with an increase in the duration of the product heating, the value of the maximum hydration rate decreases. It is concluded that the method of assessing the mode of heat treatment of concrete products being developed makes it possible to determine parameters for the calculation of the minimal useful heat required for the heat treatment of concrete products with spatially distributed parameters. The proposed method is applicable to calculate the temperature fields and the extent of hydration in the products of any geometric shape and volume in a software-controlled heating environment of industrial facilities for the accelerated hydration of concrete, and also affords the possibility of preliminary calibration prior to the assignment of relevant heat supply modes to the products being processed.

In industrial heat-technological installations for accelerated hydration of concrete, which are the main element of the thermal power system of enterprises of concrete products, the modes of heat treatment and the organization of heat supply to the product processed in them are due to the required temperature distribution in the volume of the concrete body, providing a given product quality. In order to optimize the processes occurring in such thermal device, a nonstationary mathematical model of the hardening process of the concrete product subjected to heat treatment has been developed, which allows calculating the spatial distribution of its volume temperature and degree of hydration of the active part of the cement clinker. The proposed model is based on the use of a non-stationary three-dimensional heat equation that takes into account the internal heat release due to the exothermic reaction in a concrete body and determines the degree of its hydration and hardening. For a given mode of heat treatment with the use of the finite volume method, numerical simulation of the hardening process of a symmetric concrete object of cubic shape is performed. In the selected points of the object under study, depending on the time of heat treatment, the rates of temperature change and the degree of hydration were calculated and their analysis was carried out. When analyzing the graphs of the temperature change rate, the characteristic inflections consistent with the given thermal mode of the heater were revealed. By a given mode of heat treatment of the form of “temperature rise – isothermal exposure – temperature decrease” in the selected points of the object there is an increase in temperature compared with the specified maximum temperatures of isothermal exposure, which is associated with the exothermic effect of the hydration reaction. A temperature shift relative to the specified thermal mode of the heater due to the non-equilibrium of the concrete hardening process is observed. The proposed mathematical model allows determining the time of reaching a preset temperature for any point of the internal space of the product subjected to heat treatment that can be used in the when designing of new and modernizing of existing thermal technological installations of accelerated hydration of concrete, as well as systems for automated control of the concrete hardening process in these devices. The results obtained during the study are in satisfactory agreement with the experimental data of other authors.

Thermo-technical installations consuming significant amounts of thermal energy are used in order to intensify precast and reinforced concrete production processes under industrial conditions. Despite significant progress in the study of concrete hardening in accelerated hydration devices, a prominent lack of reliable and cost-effective research and optimization methods of their operation is observed. The methods used in real production processes are mainly based on empirical dependences obtained for specific technological conditions. These methods can not always be applied for other modes and technologies. The present paper develops calculation methods based on fundamental laws that make it possible to obtain functions for evolution of concrete product hydration process. Methods of mathematical modeling permit to develop new ways directed on improvement of modes for heat treatment of concrete products and accelerated hydration technologies. The paper describes a mathematical model for calculating a hardening process of a concrete product that includes a transient three-dimensional heat conductivity equation, a function of internal heat release due to behavior of exothermic reactions of cement hydration and also a system of initial and boundary conditions. A numerical simulation for temperature and hydration coefficient of a concrete product having shape of a 0.1´0.1´0.1 m cube has been performed in the paper. Verification of the non-stationary mathematical model for calculating temperature fields and hydration degree while using experimental data on concrete product strength obtained under industrial conditions. Investigations on hydration degree function of time have shown that experimentally obtained values of compressive strength correlate with hydration coefficient and hydration rate functions of heat treatment time which are calculated on the basis of the proposed non-stationary mathematical model of concrete product hardening. Satisfactory agreement of experimental and calculated data confirms adequacy of the proposed non-stationary mathematical model for calculating temperature fields and hydration degree with accelerated heat treatment of concrete products.

The development of methods for calculating the dynamics of the energy thermal characteristics of the accelerated hydration process is one of the most difficult tasks of heat power engineering. The article describes a new method of calculating the thermal characteristics of the process, focused on its application in the installations of accelerated hydration used for the production of 3D-reinforced concrete structures. The principles of cellular-automatic modeling of energy characteristics of concrete heat treatment process were used in the development of the method. The mathematical apparatus used in the method is based on the finite-difference three-dimensional heat equation, which allows taking into account, due to the system of boundary and initial conditions, the spatial dimensions of the concrete product, the spatial arrangement of the formwork, the spatial distribution of heating elements and other design features of the accelerated hydration system. The input parameters of the models used are the density, thermal conductivity, heat capacity of the concrete mixture and structural elements included in the tooling of the product. Boundary and initial conditions will make it possible to solve modeling problems for any 3D-design. The goal of the study is to develop a method for calculating the energy characteristics dynamics of the hardening of 3D-concrete products subjected to heat treatment, based on a grid non-equilibrium thermal model. The paper presents a mathematical equation apparatus that allows linking the geometric characteristics of the product and the finite-difference equations of thermal conductivity, including sources of heat. A numerical method for determining the energy characteristics of the hardening of 3D-concrete products subjected to heat treatment has been proposed consisting of, depending on the time of heat treatment, the calculation of the outside heat supplied to the concrete product, heat dissipated into the environment, the emitted heat of hydration and the heat accumulated in the concrete product during heat treatment, taking into account the geometry of the product. The method is based on a grid three-dimensional thermophysical model that takes into account the nonequilibrium and the system of boundary conditions that reflect the specifics of the process in the accelerated hydration of concrete. Calculations of the functions of the energy characteristics determining the heat treatment, depending on the time of heat treatment for cubic 3D-concrete products of different sizes have been performed. It is demonstrated that the rate of alteration of energy characteristics can be modeled for products of any spatial configuration.