Infrastructure
The infrastructure is divided in four areas, three of them related to testing at different scales and one related to computing facilities:
1. Laboratory equipment
2. Test rigs
3. Pilot plants
4. Computation cluster
This infrastructure has allowed the group to carry out more than 15 international and 20 national research projects, and this has been and continues to be an attraction for many researchers who come to GREiA to carry out part of their research.
Laboratory equipment:
DSC 3+ Mettler Toledo, from -50 ºC to 500 ºC
Compact climatic chamber INECC-30/300 Intelec, from -50 ºC to 500 ºC;
Unique home-made test box to thermally cycle heterogeneous samples (15x15x3 cm) from 5ºC to 45 ºC
Thermal cycler Ristretto CYCL06, from 4 ºC to 105 ºC;
Corrosion experiment: vacuum corrosion testing for thermochemical
Corrosion experiment: electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) for high temperature corrosion testing
Test rigs:
Test-rig for PCM testing from -20 ºC to 100 ºC, with advanced control of temperatures and mass flow rates.
Test-rig for water testing, from 5 ºC to 90 ºC
Test-rig for thermochemical TES testing, from 20 ºC to 120 ºC.
Pilot plants:
Pilot plant for high temperature TES. Potential to test solid sensible TES materials/systems, molten salts testing (materials, components, system operation), and PCM (up to 200 kg of materials). From 20 ºC to 380 ºC.
Pilot plant for testing of TES in buildings: materials, HVAC systems with TES, geothermal storage, PCM storage, TCM storage.
Pilot plant for testing of TES technologies and systems in buildings: Connected to two different real buildings (residential and non-residential), with PV, Fresnel collectors, ORC, PCM, and sorption system.
Computation cluster:
Computation cluster to test and validate computational models, with 384 CPU (x64), 740 GB RAM, and Sun GridEngine/PBS/MPI capable.