Ghent University (UGent)
Ghent University (UGent) is a university in Belgium with in total over 49 000 students and 15 000 staff members divided over 11 faculties. The research team involved in the RES4LIVE project is the Sustainable Thermo-Fluid Energy Systems group (STFES), part of the Department of Electromechanical Systems and Metal Engineering (Faculty of Engineering and Architecture). The team is specialized in thermodynamics and heat transfer, doing experimental and numerical work. Some research topics are two-phase heat transfer, heat exchanger design, thermal storage, thermal machines and system integration.
From left to right: Willem Faes – Post-doctoral researcher & Steven Lecompte – Assistant Professor
During the RES4LIVE project, UGent is leading WP2 on market available solutions, where an inventory on existing renewable technologies and energy efficiency measures will be made. Furthermore, annual simulations will be performed by UGent to design integrated solutions per farm type, using the numerical platform developed in WP3. Additionally, feedback and advice will be given to other tasks of the projects, especially on the design and installation of renewable solutions on the ILVO pilot farm, located in close proximity of the UGent campus.
Experimental test set-up for supercritical ORC systems – ©UGent
Aarhus University (AU)
Aarhus University (AU), located in Aarhus, is the largest and second oldest university in Denmark. AU has five faculties including Arts, Natural Science, Technical Science, Health and Business and Social Sciences. AU has been ranked as the top 100 world’s best universities and it has also been ranked as the top 10 of the most beautiful universities in Europe by Times Higher Education in 2018. The university belongs to the Utrecht Network of European universities and is a member of the European University Association.
Our research group belongs to the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering. Our research is primarily driven by climate-friendly livestock productions and smart buildings occupied by humans. Especially, our research focuses on topics of the energy-efficient building ventilation systems, mitigation of gaseous emissions and heat stress, the interaction between smart buildings and urban microclimate. The research has been conducted by both experimental tests including laboratory measurements (climate Lab, shown in Fig. 1b + INNOVA instrument seen in Fig. 2b), wind tunnel tests (Atmospheric Boundary Layer wind tunnel, shown in Fig. 1a + advanced instruments e.g. Laser Doppler Anemometry seen in Fig. 2a), and field on-site measurements and numerical simulations such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling.
Fig. 1 Research facilities at AU, (a) Atmospheric Boundary Layer wind tunnel and (b) Climate lab – © AU
Fig. 2 Instruments of (a) Laser Doppler Anemometry and (b) Innova photoacoustic multi-gas monitor and multipoint sampler – © AU
Roles in RES4LIVE project
AU is leading task 2.2 in RES4LIVE project, where the energy-efficient solutions, measures and practices are to be identified. AU is also supporting the tasks such as the assessment of the impact of thermal environment on heat stress that influences productivity, the implementation of energy efficiency technologies into pilot farms such as smart ventilation, thermal insulation and local heating and cooling solutions, and the control of the indoor environment in livestock production buildings.