Fernando Carreira

The European decarbonization goals and requirement for energy independence are mostly relying on intermittent renewable energy sources for electrification. A numerical model was developed to simulate the operation of a steam generator, allowing a study of the potential impacts of retrofitting existing coal-fired power plants to operate with biomass or coal–biomass mixtures on combustion parameters and CO₂ emissions. The results obtained using the operational parameters of the Sines power plant indicate that a mixture of 25% coal and 75% pine sawdust allow operation at λ = 1.8, demonstrating that a small amount of coal allows operation near the coal combustion parameters (λ = 1.9). These conditions have the drawback of a reduction of 8.7% in adiabatic flame temperature but a significant reduction of 57.5% in CO₂ emissions, considering the biomass as carbon-neutral.

The washing of road tankers is currently still a manual process that requires an operator to place the washing head into the tanks. To increase productivity and operator safety, it is essential to implement automated systems with Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) capabilities. On the other hand, the industry 4.0 paradigm promotes the use of collaborative systems that integrate with the other organization’s processes. Realizing this new vision requires Supervision, Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems with FDI modules that integrate with collaborative systems and promote the digitalization of companies. This paper proposes a SCADA system for a new road tanker washing robot, aimed at integrating all systems and communication networks of the organization and future FDI modules. To this end, this paper proposes a communication architecture based on open protocols and a common database to connect SCADA to the lower and higher levels of automation. Furthermore, this paper describes the various aspects of SCADA system development, from synoptic design to validation. To support the development of the SCADA system, a Digital Twin (DT) of the road tanker washing robot was used, allowing to test and validate its functionality through this virtual prototype. The results show that the proposed SCADA system and underlying information architecture are suitable for supervision of a robotized wash operation and that the use of a Digital Twin facilitates SCADA system design and validation.