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Date
2016
Abstract
Industrial and manufacturing processes are an abundant source of rich and complex problems amenable to investigation with mathematical logic and techniques. Once a problem is identi ed and the right questions are formulated, a range of mathematical modelling methodologies can be leveraged. These methods can be used to simplify the problem to gain valuable insight into the underlying physical mechanisms of the system under consideration. The resulting formulated model can be used to explain observed phenomenon, explore poorly understood behaviour, determine optimal parameters and predict future states of the system. In this thesis, two problems relating to industrial processes are studied. Consistently extracting the desired level of soluble material from ground co ee with hot water is a key objective in any co ee brewing method. In this study, a co ee extraction model is derived from rst principles, using volume averaging techniques, with a view to relating the quality of brewed co ee with the parameters of the underlying processes. Physical mechanisms for the dissolution and transport of co ee are included. The model is parametrised with experimental data for different extraction experiments. The model is non-dimensionalised, to establish the dominant mechanisms during brewing. Numerical and asymptotic solutions are presented. The hydration process is a key step in the production of soft contact lenses. Hydration primarily involves the removal of leachable chemicals, used as process aids during earlier manufacturing stages, from the contact lens. The leachable materials are removed by washing the lenses with a solvent. In this work, macroscopic models of heat and mass transport in the hydration process are formulated based on experimental data. The heat transport equations are leveraged to estimate the size of heating units required to maintain the speci ed process temperatures. Chemical transport in the hydration process is modelled with a view to optimising the system parameters.
Supervisor
O'Brien, Stephen B.G.
Lee, William T.
Lee, William T.
Description
peer-reviewed
Publisher
Citation
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Files
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Moroney_2016_heat.pdf
Adobe PDF, 14.38 MB
Funding code
Funding Information
Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
Sustainable Development Goals
External Link
Type
Thesis
Rights
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/