[Gavin]

Dear all,

I'd like to draw your attention to the Fortissimo working group for OpenFOAM, where a webinar will given by Reza Nouri's presentation entitled "mADM1 - A multidimensional parallel numerical solver of ADM1 model for anaerobic digesters in OpenFOAM framework", on Wednesday, Oct 17th at 14:00 CEST (13:00 BST).

Abstract

Anaerobic digesters (ADs) are closed reactors that produce biogas from waste materials. ADs are highly complex systems, which comprise circa three tens of different chemical species that are advected with the flow, promoted by propellers. The optimisation of these devices aim to maximize the biogas production, and, at the same time, minimize the energy consumption, for instance by minimizing the propellers running time or by establishing the most effective cycle for feeding and digestate renewal. In this complex framework, most of the design activities are in general based on trial-and-error procedures, which do not guarantee optimised performances. The current high demand of alternative energy resources has increased the number of ADs in service and motivate the search of improved design procedures for these devices.

One of the first attempts to model the operation of ADs was made by the ADM1 model [1], a bulk model that comprises 47 variables and 109 coefficients. However, the ADM1 assumes homogeneous conditions that are in general far from the real situation. More recently, Gaden [2] proposed a multidimensional solver, developed in OpenFOAM framework, which was able to cope with the inhomogeneous distribution of the relevant quantities. The main limitation of the solver developed by Gaden [2] was the lack of parallelization, which limits the use of the tools on a regular basis.

The project where this work is comprised is being developed in the framework of one of the Fortissimo 2 European project experiments, and join different entities with complementary skills to develop and experimentally assess a solver appropriate to model the operation of ADs, which is able to take advantage of HPC facilities, aiming to establish and disseminate effective design procedures for these systems.

This work describes the solver implemented in OpenFOAM to model the operation of ADs, and the preliminary verification activities.

Acknowledgements: this work is funded by the Experiment Digester 2.0, developed in the framework of the Fortissimo 2 European project. The authors from IPC/i3N/University of Minho acknowledge the funding by FEDER through the COMPETE 2020 Programme, the National Funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the project UID/CTM/50025/2013.

References

[1] Batstone, D. J et al. (2002). "Anaerobic Digester Model No.1 (ADM1)", Scientific and Technical Report No.13, IWA Task Group for Mathematical Modelling of Anaerobic Digestion Processes. IWA Publishing, London, United Kingdom.
[2] Gaden, D. (2013) Modelling Anaerobic Digesters in Three Dimensions: Integration of Biochemistry with Computational Fluid Dynamics. PhD Thesis, University of Manitoba,Canada.

Speaker, Reza Nouri, is from Institute for Polymers and Composites/i3N, University of Minho, Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal.

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Thanks,
Gavin