A study of the feasibility of using mathematical optimisation to minimise the temperature in a smelter pot room

Health hazards arise in large industrial workshops (such as aluminium pot rooms) due to the production of heat by the process equipment inside these workshops, which leads to high temperatures around these pieces of equipment. The heat production is sometimes accompanied by the release of polluting gases and dust particles that are dispersed throughout the workshop. The only large-scale and cost-effective way to ventilate these workshops is through natural ventilation. The effectiveness of the ventilation depends on the architectural shape of the building, the heat source locations and the openings of the windows, louvers and/or roof ventilators through which the air is allowed to enter and exit. This paper describes the investigation into the feasibility of using mathematical optimisation to determine the ideal window slat angles for different prevailing wind conditions. The proposed optimisation methodology employs computational fluid dynamics software (FLUENT), coupled to a computationally economic optimisation algorithm (Dynamic-Q) to determine the optimum slat angles to minimise the maximum temperature. The results of this feasibility study on a large-scale aluminium smelter pot room in Inota, Hungary, show that this is a viable methodology to determine the optimum inlet configuration.