Design and Fabrication of Automated Digital Bomb Calorimeter for Measuring Calorific Values of Different Fuels

The Global energy demands prediction has been increased with annual consumption. It is investigated the recent development with the integration of renewable energy source with oil and gas industry . This bomb calorimeter is designed by using stainless steel. Its Bomb shell and bucke

Project Title

Design and Fabrication of Automated Digital Bomb Calorimeter for Measuring Calorific Values of Different Fuels

Project Area of Specialization

Mechanical Engineering

Project Summary

The Global energy demands prediction has been increased with annual consumption. It is investigated the recent development with the integration of renewable energy source with oil and gas industry . This bomb calorimeter is designed by using stainless steel. Its Bomb shell and bucket is made of structural steel with standard ASTM A514. The bomb shell is placed inside bucket after making the pressure 30 atm inside it. The components of bomb calorimeter designed, fabricated and assembled followed by calibrating it to obtain the experimental result using standard fuels. By using this bomb calorimeter, the heat of combustion for different biofuels petrol, diesel and kerosene could be found. This design is adiabatic as well as constant volume oxygen bomb calorimeter. The range of measurement of temperature from 25to 570 oC. It is for liquid fuels only.In this bomb calorimeter a bomb shell is made of steel is used to test the liquid fuel. And it is tightly closed with the shell cap so that no oxygen from inside could leak into the water. The spark is propagated to the fuel through two lids which are made of nickel. After each experiment the bomb shell is removed and make sure it is clean for next experiment. The pressure must be 30atm. Heat of combustion for different fuel is to be measured. This design requires a motor to rotate or circulate the distilled water around the bomb. This setup is designed on SolidWorks.

Design:

A circular shaped water jacket is used which contains a bucket in which bomb shell is placed. The air insulation exist which makes it an adiabatic bomb calorimeter. The bomb of calorimeter is made of specific measurement because if the thickness of bomb shell is large it produces error in the measurement of temperature of the water in bucket. To reduce the error in the experiment we use stainless steel because it has low specific heat and a good insulator to rust or corrosion in an open environment. The bucket is designed in such a way that it contains 4000ml of water and offers the installation of bomb in it. The water doesn’t overflow out of it .

There bomb is designed with such parameter that it can with stand a minimum pressure of 30atm.The head of bomb shell has two holders, one for the insertion of a thermocouple and second for holding ignition leads. Oxygen inlet is also located at the top. The liquid fuels are put into the crucible, which is adjusted inside the bomb, which carry liquid fuel. The lids of nickel which 

are connected with crucible and high electronic voltage is provided to them. Crucible is of iron and after burning a layer of ash is generated on it so after every experiment it must be cleaned.

The temperature of calorimeter is measured automatically by interfacing thermocouple to the computer with the help of an Arduino and continuously moving inside bucket and mix homogeneously. There is no direct contact of bomb with any side of bucket.

Project Objectives

Following are the two main objectives to achieve aim:

1. Design and automation of Bomb Calorimeter with suitable material and microprocessor is developed.
2. Investigate the heat of combustion of different fuels under adiabatic and constant volume conditions.

Project Implementation Method

Prepare the bomb shell by placing the crucible in it and by adding fuel in it. Then a nickel wire of

length 10mm is connected between two electrodes which touches the upper surface of the liquid of fuel. Maintain the pressure inside the bomb shell which is maximum 30atm.Fill the bucket with distilled water at quantity of 4000ml. After this, place the bomb inside it and connected the both terminals from voltage supplier to bomb shell.

Cover the whole calorimeter with the metallic sheet cover. Which contains hole for he thermocouple which measure the temperature at initial stage without ignition. When we apply high voltage across the electrodes ignition takes place. After the ignition take place temperature of water around the bomb shell increased. After the specific interval temperature of the water is measured. When the increase in temperature become stable and starts reducing at the moment it is finally measured. After that, we calculate the calorific value of the fuel we burnt in bomb shell. Repeat the procedure several times to get the accurate vales for same or different fuel.

Benefits of the Project

These are the benifits of our work,

1 Find an alnernative fuel which has more heat of combustion as compare to the conventional fuels.

2 To make this system fully adiabatic it means a practical implementation of an adiabatic system.

3 Calorific values of Biodiesel can be easily founded through this system.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Material selection:

Stainless steel is the primary material used for fabrication of inner and outer jacket of the bomb calorimeter and bomb shell, because the whole experiment is in the presence of the distilled water, so there will be a risk of rusting along plates of the inner and outer shell due to oxidation. The stainless steel has low specific heat. The overall weight of setup will be a little bit more than other metals, but have good qualities as per requirement of specific heat capacity and rusting both. This is very important to keep in mind these properties because reaction inside shell is exothermic mean heat will be released into the surrounding.

Design selection:

The material with low specific heat can be used to fabricate the jacket and bomb shell. This can be made an adiabatic bomb calorimeter by making an insulation of air. In this system no heat can leave or enter the system.

Controlling mechanism:

For atomization or digital calculations of temperature in intervals we use Arduino UNO, 14 digital input/output pins 6 analogue pins, a USB connection and power jack. It is connected to a Computer or LCD to display the values of temperature after the specific interval of time. Pressure regulation is done at once before each experiment. Pressure is maintained at 30atm and experiment is proceeded to end isobarically.

Insulation:

Insulation is required to stop the flow of heat out of system and vice versa. In this calorimeter the space between outer jacket and bucket must be 1-inch circular. The calorimeter is covered from top and spark is produced to ignite the liquid fuel.

Final Deliverable of the Project

Hardware System

Core Industry

Energy

Other Industries

Petroleum

Core Technology

Artificial Intelligence(AI)

Other Technologies

Others

Sustainable Development Goals

Affordable and Clean Energy

Required Resources

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