Multidisciplinary Senior Design

Multidisciplinary Senior Design

Project Readiness Package

Project Title: / Biothermal Heating of Greenhouses with Thermal Storage for Northern Climates
Project Number:
(assigned by MSD) / P##xxx (P/ending year/project #, e.g. P15001 finishes in 2015 and is project number 001)
Primary Customer:
(provide name, phone number, and email) / Seedfolk City Farm, Josiah Krause () and Lisa Barker ()
Sponsor(s):
(provide name, phone number, email, and amount of support) / ASHRAE grant is being applied for. We should know about grant by end of February. If grant comes through Rob Stevens () will be be point of contact. Otherwise, Seedfolk City Farm, Jacob Deyo (), will secure funds. $4970 of support funds will be available.
Preferred Start Term: / Spring 2017 (AY 2016 Spring)
Faculty Champion:
(provide name and email) / Rob Stevens ()
Other Support: / As applicable
Project Guide:
(assigned by MSD) / Sarah Brownell?
Robert Stevens / 1/12/17
Prepared By / Date
Received By / Date

Items marked with a * are required, and items marked with a † are preferred if available, but we can work with the proposer on these.

Project Information

* Overview:

As urban agriculture continues to expand in many Northern cities with the goal of providing city residents with local, easily available, and affordable fresh produce, there are increasing needs to heat greenhouses for winter crops and seedling growth for spring plantings. Conditioning greenhouses in Northern climates can be a significant expense and have negative environmental impacts. Fortunately, urban farms have access to substantial amounts of agriculture waste as well as urban yard waste such as leaf and grass clippings and organic food scraps from restaurants, schools, and businesses that can be composted to generate heat for conditioning greenhouses. A student team of mechanical, industrial and electrical engineering students will work in partnership with Seedfolk City Farm to design, build and test a heating system for a 24’x24’ greenhouse located in Rochester, NY.

The student team will work throughout the project with Seedfolk City Farm (SFCF) including customer interviews to access full needs and engineering requirements, intermediate design reviews, installation assistance, and final project reporting. Seedfolk’s mission is to provide young people with leadership training and civic engagement opportunities related to urban agriculture and community food systems. Seedfolk accomplishes this by facilitating educational employment programming designed to empower young people with the rich experience that can be gained through a hands-on and project-based learning environment. Seedfolk has operated seasonal youth employment programs in a vibrant living classroom containing 20+ raised beds, a poultry coup, numerous fruit trees and perennials, as well as a recently installed greenhouse. The greenhouse has the most potential to expand the seasonal growing operations that inform Seedfolk’s multi-dimensional curriculum.

Maintaining a warm growing space in the winter is critical to the season extension and early planting techniques that Northern climates demand. Furthermore, heating greenhouse space has been a persistent design challenge for Seedfolk given its minimal operations budget. The current intention for maintaining a climate-controlled indoor space is three-fold. First, Seedfolk requires a plant nursery space to support the various growing sites that we support. This plant nursery not only serves to strengthen our partnerships but also provides locally grown garden starts to be sold to the Rochester community. Secondly, a 4-season greenhouse gives SFCF the opportunity to expand its operations to include winter vegetable production. Lastly, heating this space during the coldest months will allow the surrounding neighborhood to learn about indoor growing and sustainable energy techniques within an engaging learning environment.

* Preliminary Customer Requirements (CR):

1.  Maintain the interior of the greenhouse at reasonable growing temperatures throughout the winter season in Rochester.

2.  Any required energy should be done without an electric or gas grid connection.

3.  System heat should primarily come from biothermal heat (decomposing organic materials) and passive solar features.

4.  System should be safe to operate and maintain (i.e. reduce unsafe thermal exposure, electrical exposure, etc.)

5.  System should not lead to food contamination.

6.  There should be no foul odors in and around the greenhouse.

7.  System should be easy to start and maintain with little or no user oversight once system is started for the heating season.

8.  Recharging composting system should be infrequent

9.  Low annual operating cost.

10.  System should be designed to be replicated to other greenhouses in the area

11.  System performance should be monitored for continued research on system effectiveness and optimization.

12.  Minimal water usage

13.  Easy of decommissioning and recharging (reduce labor and reuse as many parts as possible)

What attributes does the customer seek in the final project? Each CR should map to one or more ER (see below).

† Functional Decomposition (will not be given to the students, but will be provided to the team’s guide for reference):

What functionality will be delivered in order to satisfy the customer requirements? This may be in the form of a list of functions, a function tree or a FAST diagram.

·  Moderate temperature control (pump, valve control)

·  Maintain aeroboic composting conditions (aeration and moisture control)

·  Environmental condition monitoring (greenhouse temperature, ambient temperature, solar flux(?), compost temperature, air and water flow temperatures, moisture levels)

·  Heat transfer between compost and working fluid (air or water or both)

·  Thermal energy storage

·  Odor filter

·  Condensation system (moisture recovery, prevent collection in ducting and mold formation)

·  Heat transfer to greenhouse space

·  Heat transfer to garden beds

·  User interface

·  Greenhouse insulation to reduce heat losses in winter

* Preliminary Engineering Requirements (ER):

CR / Engineering Requirements / Unit / Minimum Specification / Ideal Specification
1 / Low temperature inside greenhouse space / [°F] / >40 / >50
1 / High temperature inside greenhouse space / [°F] / <95 / <85
1 / Temperature of primary growing beds / [°F] / >45 <90 / >55 <85
2 / Peak electrical energy / [W] / <500 / <250W
2 / Peak daily energy usage / [Wh] / 1000 / 500
3 / No backup heating system required / [Yes/No] / Yes / Yes
4 / All wiring and junction boxes conforms to National Electrical Code / [Yes/No] / Yes / Yes
4 / Data acquisition and control system are properly fuse protected / [Yes/No] / Yes / Yes
4 / Temperature of exposed surfaces (ASTM C1055) / [°F] / <140 / <120
5 / ???
6 / ??? (https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/odors/faqs.html, https://www.astm.org/Standards/E679.htm, https://www.astm.org/Standards/E544.htm)
7 / Weekly maintenance time after season start-up / [min/wk] / <60 / <15
7 / Temperature control operations per week / [task] / <3 / 0
8 / Time between reloading or turning compost pile / [weeks] / <4 / <16
9,13 / Man hours to start system annually / [hr] / <16 / <8
9,13 / Man hours to unload compost pile / [hr] / <16 / <8
9,13 / Annual operating costs / [$/yr] / <500 / <100
10 / ???
11 / Heat rates, greenhouse and ambient temperatures collected / [] / Manual / Automated
12 / Gallons of water used per week / [gal/week] / <300 / <100

Include both metrics and specifications. Each ER should map to one or more CRs (see above).

Metrics: what quantities will be measured in order to verify success?

Specifications: what is the target value of the metric that the team should design to?

* Constraints:

·  Must use compost for primary heat source

·  $5000 budget

· 

List any external factors that limit the selection of alternatives, e.g., allowable footprint, budget, required use of legacy hardware/software.

† Potential Concepts: (will not be given to the students, but will be provided to the team’s guide for reference):

Generate a short list of potential solutions, along with the disciplines that may be required to realize each. This helps to ensure that projects are feasible.

The student team will model the heating load of the current greenhouse located at 929 S. Plymouth Ave, Rochester, NY and develop a winterization strategy to reduce heating requirements without loss of solar gains for growing purposes and minimal human intervention. This will most like include some air sealing and below grade perimeter and wall insulation.

The heating system will be driven by a negatively pressurized aerated static compost pile. The proposed heating concept is based on some work the University of Vermont has previously done to heat a much larger greenhouse. If done properly, aerobic composting can reach temperatures between 120-160°F and generate 60,000 BTU/hr of thermal energy from 50 tons of compost materials throughout a heating season. The heat generated during decomposition of garden, landscape, and food waste can be used to heat air and water for thermal loads such as greenhouse heating.

There has been several different compost heating design approaches. For this specific project, the students will most likely use a static compost pile placed around a series of perforated rigid ducts and pull air through the pile. This will aerate the pile increasing biological breakdown of material and eliminate the need for mixing compost on a regularly basis. As the air passes through the pile into the duct, heat and moisture are captured. This moist hot air will then pass through a heat exchanger to heat a larger water storage tank. The warm moisture air exiting the heat exchanger will then pass through a biofilter that is located below growing beds in the greenhouse. The biofilter will be used to capture odor, condense water vapor for drip irrigation and provide some heating to the greenhouse. The thermal energy collected in the storage tank will be circulated through a series of radiant heating loops in the growing beds as needed to maintain desired bed and greenhouse temperatures. During times when the thermal storage system is fully charged and there is no heating load, air flow through the compost pile will be decreased and directed outside the greenhouse space.

The design challenges will be to properly size the compost pile and storage tank size to satisfy the heating demands throughout the winter, to analyze the flow and heat transfer in the compost pile, ducting and piping systems, and to develop a control system to maintain proper aeration of the compost pile and heating requirements of the greenhouse. A simple data acquisition system to measure temperatures, humidity levels, and flows will be developed to monitor performance to aid in troubleshooting and future performance optimization.

* Project Deliverables:

Minimum requirements:

·  All design documents (e.g., concepts, analysis, detailed drawings/schematics, BOM, test results)

·  working prototype

·  technical paper

·  poster

·  All teams finishing during the spring term are expected to participate in ImagineRIT

Additional required deliverables:

·  If ASHRAE funding comes through, the grant requires:

o  Some sort of plaque acknowledging support from ASHRAE

o  Final report to ASHRAE

o  A video of the grant project. This video will need to be a minimum of two minutes, maximum of five minutes.

·  Operations and maintenance manual

† Budget Information:

Include total budget, any major cost items anticipated, and any special purchasing requirements from the sponsor(s).

This is a rough budget of possible equipment needed.

ITEM / BUDGET
Ducting for aeration & biofilter / $460
Piping & fittings / $400
Thermal storage tank / $550
Perimeter wall and ground insulation / $360
Circulation system controllers / $500
Blower & Circulating Pump / $450
Electrical interconnects, box, BOS / $200
Heat Exchanger & Manifold / $250
Ducting and controllable dampers / $300
Datalogger & sensors (temperature, oxygen, RH) / $800
Flow meters / $500
Programmable Controller / $200
TOTAL / $4970

* Intellectual Property:

Describe any IP concerns or limitations. According to RIT policy, students have the right to retain any IP they generate during a course, but some students voluntarily agree to be placed on projects where they will be asked to assign their IP. If a sponsor wishes to have a team assign their IP, we need to know ahead of time so that we can place appropriate students on the team.

In order to ensure that students can discuss their projects openly during presentations and job interviews, we ask that no more than ~20% of the project be considered confidential.

Project Resources

† Required Resources (besides student staffing):

Describe the resources necessary for successful project completion. When the resource is secured, the responsible person should initial and date to acknowledge that they have agreed to provide this support. We assume that all teams with ME/ISE students will have access to the ME Machine Shop and all teams with EE students will have access to the EE Senior Design Lab, so it is not necessary to list these. Limit this list to specialized expertise, space, equipment, and materials.

Faculty list individuals and their area of expertise (people who can provide specialized knowledge unique to your project, e.g., faculty you will need to consult for more than a basic technical question during office hours) / Initial/date
Rob Stevens
Environment (e.g., a specific lab with specialized equipment/facilities, space for very large or oily/greasy projects, space for projects that generate airborne debris or hazardous gases, specific electrical requirements such as 3-phase power) / Initial/date
Greenhouse located at 929 S. Plymouth Ave, Rochester, NY, will have to coordinate access with Jacob or Josiah
Equipment (specific computing, test, measurement, or construction equipment that the team will need to borrow, e.g., CMM, SEM, ) / Initial/date
Materials (materials that will be consumed during the course of the project, e.g., test samples from customer, specialized raw material for construction, chemicals that must be purchased and stored) / Initial/date
Other / Initial/date

† Anticipated Staffing By Discipline:

Indicate the requested staffing for each discipline, along with a brief explanation of the associated activities. “Other” includes students from any department on campus besides those explicitly listed. For example, we have done projects with students from Industrial Design, Business, Software Engineering, Civil Engineering Technology, and Information Technology. If you have recruited students to work on this project (including student-initiated projects), include their names here.