Johannes Pernpeintner’s research while affiliated with German Aerospace Center (DLR) and other places

Solid particles as heat absorptances and storage mediums promise enhanced energy storage densities in concentrated solar power/thermal (CSP/T) plants. Employment of metallurgical slags as a secondary precursor material for solid particle preparation is ecologically and economically beneficial. Although these processed wastes, comprised of several oxides, exhibit generally promising high-temperature properties, chemical scattering from batch to batch may result in distinct material and functional properties, which may be an obstacle for their utilization. In this study, a steelmaking slag, LiDonit (LD), produced using a unique controlled slag treatment with high reproducibility is investigated as a candidate material. The aforementioned subsequent unique slag treatment makes LD a very promising and distinguishable secondary raw material for high-temperature applications. The as-received microstructure, phase components, and chemical composition of the LD material were analyzed to understand its material properties and to assess its reproducibility. The as-received LD chunks were transferred into pellets by subsequent milling, gel-casting, and sintering stages to reveal the potential processing routes. The CSP/T-related properties of sintered pellets, such as high temperature stability, heat capacity, and solar absorptance, were also examined to reveal their potential use in CSP/T applications and expand application areas with high added value.

Mapping and investigating the technical, energy, and safety properties of buildings can be effectively accomplished using Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools. However, detailed geometric and structural information, material properties, and complete BIM models are often unavailable for existing buildings. Renovations, conversions, and aging phenomena further complicate the assessment of a building’s condition over its lifetime, necessitating (re)surveying efforts. In a collaborative project focused on studying smoke and gas dispersion pathways in buildings, a multidisciplinary team at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) explored the application of innovative mobile and non-invasive measurement methods to characterize existing buildings, surpassing the capabilities of state-of-the-art techniques. This research entailed the development and testing of enhanced acoustic measurements and H2 tracer gas techniques for leakage detection. Furthermore, a novel radar system was designed to analyse walls for concealed interconnecting structures. All measurement systems and approaches were collectively demonstrated on an existing office building, with the integration and localization of measurement data achieved through an automated process into a unified 3D database. The information obtained from these comprehensive measurements was visualized within a single-building model. By employing these advanced measurement techniques, a more thorough understanding of existing building conditions was achieved, surpassing the limitations of conventional methods. The successful integration and visualization of the acquired information within a unified model provide valuable insights for future renovations, conversions, and safety analyses. This research contributes to bridging the gap between traditional surveying practices and modern, data-driven approaches, enabling more efficient and accurate assessments of existing buildings.

The use of solid particles as direct heat absorbance and storage media promises enhanced storage densities in concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies. The long-term optical performance of those particles, which aim to be operational over years, is crucial. Dry powder coating with a deep black Cu-Mn-oxide pigment in a resonant acoustic mixer and subsequent sintering was employed to improve the long-term optical performance of hematite-rich spherical particles, which aimed to replace the state-of-the-art bauxite proppants. Due to the specific reactivity of the hematite particles, a new strategy using an Al-modified composition of the initial deep black pigment was required. The Al modification diminishes cation diffusion into hematite, allowing the formation of spinel-type Fe-Mn-Cu-Al-oxide coatings with favorable long-term temperature and optical stability. The effect of chemical composition of the coating layer on the coating process mechanism was discussed and the need for an elongated sintering time was noticed to ensure the termination of stable spinel phase formation. The structural and optical measurements revealed the enhancement of the properties of hematite absorber particles through this new modified coating process.

Air leakage in building envelopes is responsible for a large portion of the building’s heating and cooling requirements. Therefore, fast and reliable detection of leaks is crucial for improving energy efficiency. This paper presents a new approach to determining air leakages in a building’s envelope from the outside, combining lock-in thermography and thermal excitation by a blower door system. The blower creates a periodic overpressure within the building, inducing periodic temperature variations of the surfaces near the leaks on the outside surface, the façade. With the temperature variations excited at a known frequency, Fourier transforms of the time-series of the thermal images at the excitation frequency result in amplitude and phase images highlighting the areas affected by leaks. Periodic excitation and detection by an IR camera is known as lock-in thermography and is widely used to characterise semiconductor devices and in non-destructive testing. Excitation is usually achieved by optical, electrical, or mechanical energy input. For this work, measurements of outside façades have been performed with three excitation cycles of a period of 40 s at a 75 Pa pressure difference, leading to a total measurement time of only 2 min. Measurements have been performed with air temperature differences of 5 to 7 K at highly variable conditions of irradiance, wind, and cloud cover. The measurements show higher detection quality and less impact from changing ambient conditions than the state-of-the-art differential infrared thermography measurements. With the method highlighting the variations in the amplitude image only at the excitation frequency, variations caused by environmental effects are filtered out. A temperature difference as low as a few Kelvin is therefore sufficient, and large façades can be examined from the outside. This amplitude image is already clearer than an image created with differential thermography. A further reduction of unwanted artefacts in the image is demonstrated using phase-weighing of the amplitude by scalar product.

Air leakage in building envelopes is responsible for a large portion of the building’s heating and cooling requirements. Therefore, fast and reliable detection of leaks is crucial for improving energy efficiency. This paper presents a new approach to determining air leakages in a building’s envelope from the outside, combining lock-in thermography and thermal excitation by a blower door system. The blower creates a periodic overpressure within the building, inducing periodic temperature variations of the surfaces near the leaks on the outside surface, the façade. With the temperature variations excited at a known frequency, Fourier transforms of the time-series of the thermal images at the excitation frequency result in amplitude and phase images highlighting the areas affected by leaks. Periodic excitation and detection by an IR camera is known as lock-in thermography and is widely used to characterize semiconductor devices and in non-destructive testing. Excitation is usually achieved by optical, electrical, or mechanical energy input. For this work, measurements of outside façades have been performed with three excitation cycles of a period of 40 seconds at a 75 Pa pressure difference, leading to a total measurement time of only 2 minutes. Measurements have been performed with air temperature differences of 5 to 7 K at highly variable conditions of irradiance, wind, and cloud cover. The measurements show higher detection quality and less impact from changing ambient conditions than the state-of-the-art differential infrared thermography measurements. With the method highlighting the variations in the amplitude image only at the excitation frequency, variations caused by environmental effects are filtered out. A temperature difference as low as a few Kelvin is therefore sufficient, and large façades can be examined from the outside. This amplitude image is already clearer than an image created with differential thermography. A further reduction of unwanted artefacts in the image is demonstrated using phase-weighing of the amplitude by scalar product.

Precise knowledge of particle optical properties is crucial to the advancement and success of directly-irradiated particle receiver technologies. This work presents the results of a Round Robin Test (RRT) that was conducted between seven laboratories, where each par- ticipant measured the absorptance and emittance for a set of five different particle types. This research was performed within the framework of the SolarPACES Task III group, and the re- sults helped establish a guideline for evaluating the optical properties of particles. The guide- line was published on the SolarPACES Task III website in May 2022.