%0 Articles
%T Improving performance and energy efficiency of biomass supply through machine alteration and organisational redesign
%A Prinz, Robert
%D 2019
%J Dissertationes Forestales
%V 2019
%N 276
%R doi:10.14214/df.276
%U http://dissertationesforestales.fi/article/10203
%X <p>This thesis summarises the findings of four case studies focussing on the redesign of specific aspects of the forest chip supply chain, the use of alternative terminals for chip supply, the interdependencies of chipper and chip trucks and the performance of individual machines after machine alteration. The aim of the work was to analyse and improve the fuel economy and energy efficiency of the forest chip supply system by modifying the settings of CTL harvesters, investigating the performance of an innovative hybrid chipper, introducing alternative supply systems through the use of a feed-in terminal and an analysis of forest chip supply systems under selected operational and environmental conditions. The analysis of the case studies involved individual machines and the entire forest chip supply system. Two study methods were used: work study and discrete event simulation (DES). Work study carried out to investigate the performance of individual machines and their alteration; the DES method was used for investigating the organisational redesign of the forest fuel supply system. The study resulted in the following findings and conclusions: 1) extreme machine settings have a statistically significant impact on the fuel economy of CTL harvesting machines; 2) hybrid machine technology can improve the fuel consumption and energy efficiency of chipping operations in forest chip production; nevertheless the productivity of the analysed prototype was below that for compared traditional chippers; 3) as an alternative to the direct supply of forest chips, the effect of utilising terminal operations on the overall supply cost can be quantified; terminal use improves the annual use of the supply fleet and enhances fuel supply security to the plant thereby reducing the need for supplementary fuel and 4) applying different types of types of chipper and truck-trailer combinations, supply costs and efficiencies can be quantified and vehicles with increased carrying capacity can improve the cost competitiveness. In the study an integrated approach taking physical, technological, enterprise and industrial levels of energy efficiency into account is proposed. Thereby state-of-the-art forest technology and current biomass supply ideally can be upgraded to achieve new, improved levels of performance and energy efficiency.</p>