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Our Focus

The activities focus on thermal-hydraulic design and simulations of heat transfer equipment and their systems for process and power industries. This primarily includes:

• thermal-hydraulic design and rating of both common and special types of heat exchangers including design of heat transfer equipment for non-standard applications;
• thermal-hydraulic design and rating of fired heaters and steam boilers;
• hydrodynamic design and simulations of transfer pipelines and assessment of their possible modifications;
• heat exchanger network analyses and integration of combustion equipment and fired heaters into processes;
• analyses of fluid flow and distribution in process equipment;
• training of Chemstations CHEMCAD (software for process simulation) and HTRI Xchanger Suite (software for design of common types of heat transfer equipment).

Solution Strategy

According to the required level of design or calculation of a specific heat transfer apparatus, either a commercial software or an in-house software is used. In-house software tools are always tailor-developed for the respective application and are based on recent research on heat transfer and fluid dynamics. As for commercial packages, we have available not only tools for thermal-hydraulic design and rating, but also tools for conceptual design and analyses of heat transfer systems.

If complex evaluation of a heat transfer apparatus is required (i.e., in terms of technology, operation, construction, service life, and so on), we collaborate with the other specialised groups of the Institute of Process Engineering.

Student Participation

Students can participate in the activities of the group via their bachelor and diploma theses. Given the fact that the activities cover a wide range of research areas, the respective thesis topics can be tailored to the abilities and interests of the students and can be focused on development, construction, as well as engineering calculations.

Collaboration with Commercial Companies

We collaborate with the industry on a contractual basis in all the above-mentioned research areas. The following industrial research projects can be listed as examples:

• Design of fired heater for a vacuum distillation process;
• Design and technical-economic optimisation of air preheating system of a fired heater;
• Analysis and assessment of possible modifications of a transfer pipeline;
• Analysis of behaviour of heat exchangers in a nuclear power plant under various operating conditions;
• Analysis and modifications of a heat recovery steam generator;
• Operational and technical evaluation of a steam boiler;
• Retrofit of heat exchanger in a coal power plant to reduce fouling;
• Assessment of possible modifications of a process waste gas preheater and the respective waste gas combustion process to reduce fouling and prolong the period betweed shutdowns;
• Design of special heat exchanger for a high-temperature application (heating of the media to temperatures above 800 °C);
• Low-cost retrofit of heat exchanger network to reduce energy demand of a production process;
• Design of a polymer solution heating system;
• Development and evaluation of calculation procedures and software tools for thermal-hydraulic design and rating of heat transfer equipment;
• Evaluation of suitability of commercial software for design of a non-standard condenser;
• Training of commercial software packages in the extent required by the customer.

References can be found here.

Research Projects

Currently, the group participates in the following research projects:

• NETME CENTRE PLUS, provider: Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports of the Czech Republic, National Sustainability Programme I, LO1202, 2014–2018
• Waste-to-Energy Competence Centre, provider: Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, Competence Centres Programme, TE02000236, 2014–2018
• Sustainable Process Integration Laboratory, provider: Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports of the Czech Republic, EU – Operational Programme Research, Development and Education, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0­.0/15_003/0000456, 2017–2022

More information on research projects of the Institute of Process Engineering can be found here.

Contact Information

If you wish to collaborate with us, please contact:

Assoc. Prof. Zdeněk JEGLA, Ph.D.
group leader
Institute of Process Engineering
building A1, 9^th floor, office No. 923
email: zdenek.jegla@vut.cz
phone: +420 54114 2371