Welcome to the EuroFlam Web Site  
A Consortium of Large Scale Facilities in the Field of
Energy, Combustion and the Environment

Combustion Technology: Research, Development & Training
Transnational Access to Major Research Infrastructures



The Partners- ENEL-Produzione
 Pisa, Italy

ENEL-Produzione is the Largest Generating Company in Italy and is the Industrial Partner in the EuroFlam Consortium. In 1998 the Company Sold 180,000 Million kWh of Electricity to 29 Million Customers. Visiting Investigators are Given a Unique Opportunity to Work on Full-Size Combustion and Power Generation Systems or on Problems Relating Directly to This Vital Industry (Project listing).

ENEL Produzione is equipped with a technologically diverse generation park, comprising natural gas, oil, coal and orimulsion fired thermal plants, and tanked and pumped hydroelectric plants.

ENEL Produzione-Ricerca, the research arm of ENEL Produzione, has a staff of about 200 researchers and technicians and more than 20 years of experience in the field of energy conversion. Its functions include enhancing the reliability and safety of thermal generation processes, reduction of operating and maintenance costs, lowering pollutant emissions from thermal plants and monitoring and assessment of the environmental impact of plants.

The headquarters of ENEL are located in the historic city of Pisa, Tuscany. The city, located 70 km west of Florence, is famous for the Leaning Tower and possesses one of the oldest universities in Europe. A large number of scheduled flights from all over Europe land at the regional airport.

The research conducted by ENEL ranges from preliminary studies through pilot and prototype plant trials all the way to full-size demonstrations on large power stations. Visiting investigators can gain valuable experience in crucial aspects of combustion and pollution formation in furnaces and boilers by working with established research teams. The EuroFlam Programme Manager, Dr. Graziadio, is supported by a number of experienced and highly-qualified engineers. The areas under investigation include fuel atomisation, advanced diagnostics, boiler modelling, pollution formation and treatment, and characterisation of residues produced by power plants.

EuroFlam projects are principally conducted in three ENEL facilities, Pisa, Livorno and Santa Gilla. All visiting investigators have their offices in Pisa. A dedicated chemical laboratory, used to perform detailed characterisation of fuels, fuel additives and combustion products, is also located in Pisa.

Combustion and pollution formation in a variety of different environments can be modelled in Pisa using extensive computing facilities, including two Cray T94 and Y-MP2E super-computers.

The Livorno laboratory, located 18km from Pisa, is equipped with a 100kWth furnace, a 0.5MWth furnace and an 8MWth single burner test boiler. The 0.5MWth facility is capable of burning gaseous, liquid and pulverised solid fuels, with complete control of all mass flow inputs. It is a down-fired vertical furnace, equipped with variable heat transfer surfaces. Measurements of wall heat flux, gas temperature, product gas composition and solids can be made in different furnace positions and in the stack. Gas turbine combustors can be characterised under of gas turbine atmospheric pressure operating conditions using a rig equipped with observation and pressure probes. There are also experimental rigs for studying the atomisation of liquid fuels and investigating the premixing of fuels and oxidants. Visiting investigators are guaranteed daily transport to and from Livorno.

The Santa Gilla thermal laboratory is situated near Cagliari airport on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. The facility is centred on a 5MWth opposite-wall fired Boiler Simulation Facility which can be used to test new combustion technologies and to study the effects of burning novel fuels. Downstream of the boiler simulator a scaled electrostatic precipitator can be used to study the abatement of particulate matter produced by the combustion of unconventional fuels. Cagliari is connected to Pisa airport by direct flights.

Dependent on the project that they are assigned to, EuroFlam investigators may also have the opportunity to work at other ENEL facilities. These include a laboratory at Sesta, near Siena, for testing full-scale gas turbine combustors at full operating pressure, and full-scale power stations.

More on EuroFlam at ENEL ...

More about ENEL EuroFlam Contract ...

 

Project Listing:

GRADUATES IN ENGINEERING

  1. Diagnosis, prevention and mitigation of environmentally relevant potential accidents in thermoelectric plants

  2. Gas turbine combustion

  3. Development of simplified kinetic models for the interpretation of experimental data on the formation of Polynuclear Aromatic Compounds (PAC) under pyrolytic conditions

  4. Set-up and characterisation of a laboratory scale fixed bed reactor for the study of solid fuel thermal behaviour (coals, biomasses, refuse derived fuels, new fuels)

  5. Development of Internet/Intranet application using html and Java

  6. Combustion simulation in industrial advanced burners

  7. Development of a mathematical model for the prediction of spray quality for a twin-fluid atomizer

  8. Fluid-dynamic characterisation of burner and/or gas turbine combustors in isothermal conditions

  9. Development and implementation of a model for the estimation of the fluid-dynamic behaviour of ash from pulverised coal combustion or gasification

  10. Development and test of an active control system related to combustion instabilities in gas turbines

  11. Experimental assessment of biomass pyrolysis

  12. Externally fired combined cycles for integrative employment of low cost fuels

  13. Integration of biomass pressurised gassification in combined cycles

  14. Turbomachinery

GRADUATES IN CHEMISTRY

  1. Chlorine mobilization under thermal treatment of waste material for energy recovery

  2. Laboratory scale experimental study on Polynuclear Aromatic Compound (PAC) formation and destruction during coal pyrolysis and gasification

  3. Analysis and risk assessment of asbestos containing materials

  4. Characterization and re-use of oil combustion ashes

  5. Mechano-chemical inertization of industrial hazardous wastes

  6. Chemical characterisation of fuels, ash and deposits

  7. Industrial statistics: application of optimal design and correlation techniques to combustion experiments 

  8. Modelling ash deposition during coal combustion

GRADUATES IN PHYSICS

  1. Development of a flame diagnostics system based on the use of a fast television camera for the detection of relevant species

 

For further information on the EuroFlam programme, mail to: info@euroflam.net
Page designed and executed by "Aristide Of St. Michael" in co-operation with Peter Roberts at IFRF NET,
Tony Griffiths at UWCC and Mario Graziadio at ENEL.