Caterpillar Technical Center
Mossville, Illinois
Kandarp Patel
Bradley University, Peoria
Caterpillar is the world’s largest manufacturer of construction
and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas
turbines. The Technical Center is located north of Peoria, Illinois, in
Mossville.
The intern project involved evaluating two heat-treating software packages
that included:
- Process Heating Assessment and Survey Tool (PHAST) developed by the
US Department of Energy. This software provides an introduction to process
heating methods and tools to improve thermal efficiency of heating equipment.
PHAST Estimates annual energy use and annual energy cost by performing
a detailed heat balance on each furnace.
- Computerized Heat Treatment for Batch Furnace (CHT-bf) developed by
the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. This tool was developed to model
and simulate the temperature variations in heat treatment processes.
The part loading and thermal schedule can be optimized while ensuring
quality.
Result:
Both software packages were validated on four different batch furnaces
utilizing a gear and rectangular bar at the Technical Center. Experimental
versus modeled data was confirmed on six different setups on two separate
furnaces.
It has been determined that the software could also be utilized in the
continuous heat-treating facilities at other Caterpillar facilities. This
would enable a facility to assist in its energy optimization and has the
potential for substantial energy savings by the reuse of thermal energy.
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