J.A. Farré, R. Salgado-Pizarro, M. Martín, G. Zsembinszki, J. Gasia, L.F. Cabeza, C. Barreneche, A.I. Fernández
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2021.03.041
Waste Management, Volume 126, Pages 643-651
Quartile Q1, Impact 7.145
Conventional municipal waste management systems based on collecting and storing waste for future management are cost-effective and flexible. These systems present significant problems such as odours, plagues and hygiene problems caused by their storage and greenhouse gas emissions from garbage trucks used for the transport of waste. The Automated Waste Collection System (AWCS) and Automated Vacuum Waste Collection (AVWC) systems, in which waste is transported directly underground to the processing plants, are efficient collection systems and respectful of the environment as alternatives to traditional systems. The pneumatic system reduces the value of the per capita generation of general waste. The present study explains the origin of pipe failure in two different AWCS factories, as well as the identification of the failure phenomena. To carry out the study, a classification of 90 failure cases by primary cause was performed, followed by recommendations to avoid these failures in the future. Moreover, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was performed in order to help in the failure determination and the key recommendations to avoid the most common and frequent failures.
Funding
The authors at the Universitat de Barcelona would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group DIOPMA (2017 SGR 0118). DIOPMA is certified agent TECNIO in the category of technology developers from the Government of Catalonia. The authors at the Universitat de Lleida would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group (2017 SGR 1537). GREiA is certified agent TECNIO in the category of technology developers from the Government of Catalonia. This work is partially supported by ICREA under the ICREA Academia programme.
Research category: Environment, Industrial Processes