Study of the Energy Consumption of the Fibreglass Production Process

Abstract

To limit the current energy crisis, European countries seek to improve their energy efficiency. The key to do so is to limit energy consumption, which also has an economic and environmental impact. The industrial sector is particularly energy-intensive, and many companies are optimising their processes to decrease their consumption. This is the case of "3B-the fibreglass company", specialised in the manufacture of glass fibres. In this work, the glass production process is analysed to have a better comprehension of its energy consumption. In particular, a heat integration is carried out through a pinch analysis on three production lines to determine possible energetic improvements. It was discovered that the enhancements of the energy consumption through a heat exchangers network would be limited. Indeed, the pinch analysis led to the conclusion that there are only a few possibilities to establish such a network. Therefore, the focus was set on another unit of the process: the oven of the line dedicated to the mat production. This unit is particularly energy-intensive, its power consumption peaking at 2.8 MW. Heat and mass balances were performed to better understand its functioning and the reasons for such a high consumption. It was found out that the energy is mainly used to heat the air which will allow the water contained in the product to evaporate. However, the main problem is that there are some air infiltrations and exfiltrations, the latter representing a loss of 10 to 20% of the total heat provided to the oven.