Achieving energy efficiency and quality control during veneer drying with data-driven approaches

Minimizing energy consumption is essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With that in mind, the industry partner wants to transition to a quantitative monitoring approach to simultaneously manage product quality and energy consumption. The intern will work to understand the relationship between raw material characteristics, process parameters, product quality indices, and energy consumption. They will use industrial data and various data-driven approaches to develop an energy consumption prediction model that could then be adapted into an online monitoring system. From the model, the intern will be able to recommend operational guidelines to the industry partner, who will benefit by increasing their understanding of the veneer drying process. This should result in a reduction in production costs and greenhouse gas emission.

Faculty Supervisor:

Julie Cool;Stavros Avramidis

Student:

Qing Qiu

Partner:

Coastland Wood Industries Ltd

Discipline:

Forestry

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of British Columbia