The Energy Center would like to invite you to their Lunch Seminar on: “Biomass Materials Handling Systems Design: Adding New and Improved Design and Simulation Tools to the Engineering Tool Kit.” Presented by: Dr. James H. Dooley & Dr. Hojae Yi.

Friday November 9, 2018, 12:00 PM (Noon), ME 3006.

Space is limited, RSVP for pizza lunch: energy@purdue.edu.

Overview:

Dr. Jim Dooley, Chief Technology Officer of Forest Concepts, LLC and Dr. Hojae Yi, Assistant Research Professor of Pennsylvania State University will present the seminar. Dr. Dooley is the PI of a recently awarded DOE project to expand and improve the engineer’s tool kit for designing biomass handling systems. They will provide an overview of their project and discuss how the properties and behavior of biomass materials are sufficiently different from soil, gravel, coal, and other granular materials that current characterization and engineering methods often result in handling systems that do not perform as intended.

They will use examples from their project ranging from simple angle of repose and bulk density measurements to the true cubic triaxial testers to show the limits of existing methods. Dr. Dooley will discuss methods and devices being developed by Forest Concepts. Penn State is leading the adaption and improvement of biomass flowability models and simulations. Dr. Yi will discuss the flow modeling schemes they are working with to engineer bulk biomass handling systems and approaches to improve how well these models represent the characteristics and behavior of biomass feedstocks.

This project will contribute to the ultimate national goal of reducing risks and improving performance across the emerging biomass sector of the bioeconomy.