About
Decarbonizing Industrial Food Drying with Energy-Efficient Desiccant-Wheel Heat Pump System
Overall Objectives
- desiccant wheel with regenerative hybrid desiccant.
- a desiccant wheel heat pump (DWHP) system.
- an intelligent hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) with transfer learning based product-centric controller.
Principal Investigators
Zheng O’Neill, Texas A&M University
Dr. Zheng O’Neill is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at TAMU. She has 25 years of experience in HVAC technology covering heat pump technologies, and smart sensors and intelligent controls. Dr. O’Neill was a PI at United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) where she led a multi-million-dollar industry and university consortium in development and implementation of scalable modeling and control solutions for energy-efficient buildings. She has led or been involved in research awards totaling more than $30 M from ASHRAE, DOE, DOD, ARPA-E, NSF, and industry, and has published more than 160 journal articles and conference papers.
Bryan Rasmussen, Texas A&M University
Dr. Bryan Rasmussen is a Professor and Associate Department Head in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at TAMU. He is also the Director of the Texas A&M Industrial Assessment Center (IAC). The center has twice been recognized as the top center nationally, and he has received the “Excellence in Applied Energy Engineering Research” award in 2012, 2014, and 2020. Additionally, Prof. Rasmussen is a recognized expert in dynamic modeling, control design, and fault detection for residential, commercial, and industrial cooling and heat pump systems.
Rosana Moreira, Texas A&M University
Dr. Rosana Moreira is a professor in food engineering at the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M University. She specializes in fundamental modeling and automatic control of food processing systems, food dehydration (impingement drying), extrusion, deep-fat frying (vacuum frying), biomass pretreatment for bioenergy, food irradiation (Monte Carlo & dose distribution).
Shu Yang, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Shu Yang is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn. She has secondary appointment in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Penn. She has extensive experience in synthesis, assembly and manufacturing of coatings, including assembly of silica nanoparticles of different surface treatment and nano-/microstructured surfaces, fundamental and practical knowledge in surface science to control water condensation, absorption and removal.
Qing (Cindy) Chang, University of Virginia
Dr. Qing (Cindy) Chang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia. Her research has focused on improving the sustainability and efficiency of smart manufacturing systems. She specializes in dynamic manufacturing system modeling and analysis based on sensor data, adaptive control and machine learning based control to improve the performance of manufacturing processes and systems, and human-robot collaborations in manufacturing.
Zhiyao Yang, Texas A&M University
Dr. Zhiyao Yang is Research Engineer III in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at TAMU. He has 10 years of experience in advanced technologies and systems for building energy and environment. His research has focused on integrated systems using technologies such as heat pump, sorption and energy storage. He has led multiple heat pump centered projects using both experiment and simulation for improved efficiency in dealing with latent load and under cold climates.
Mingzhe Liu, Texas A&M University
Dr. Mingzhe Liu is a Research Engineer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at TAMU. He has excellent experience in modeling and optimization of building and district energy systems, the development, and application of renewable heating and cooling systems based on geothermal and solar energy utilization.
Our Team
Advisory Board
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