Univé | the smart chimney

ICR3ATE has contributed to a special innovation project of Univé. With this project Univé wants to investigate the practical and technical impossibilities to reduce or even eliminate the risk of chimney fire.ICR3ATE has contributed to a special innovation project of Univé. With this project Univé wants to investigate the practical and technical impossibilities to reduce or even eliminate the risk of chimney fire.

In 2018 Univé took part in a Business Challenge organised by the Chamber of Commerce (CoC). The Chamber of Commerce organises these challenges in order to make it easier for large companies and corporations to get in touch with SMEs and startups. ICR3ATE was one of the participants, along with dozens of other small companies. During this Business Challenge Univé chose to involve us, together with Fluctus Industrial Design & Engineering and Studio Mango, in their ambition for ‘No Fire in Your Chimney’
This resulted in the project initiative NOFIYC, initiated by the Innovation team of Univé.
With this innovation project Univé wants to explore the practical and technical possibilities to reduce or even eliminate the risk of chimney fire.
With the efforts of Arvid Hendriks from QManagement we have entered into a collaboration for
this project. A collaboration with three smaller parties and a collaboration

with Univé.

Three lines were followed in the first exploratory phase of this project

1. What do the experts say about the ambition to measure the critical factors that cause a chimney fire in/around the chimney?
2. To what extent are there past experiences and patents that are blocking the development of a possible technical solution?
3. How can we measure such things as chimney temperature and stove outlet temperature, firing behaviour and to what extent can we use this to warn about chimney fire and perhaps even predict it?

   How can we measure such things as chimney temperature and stove outlet temperature, firing behaviour and to what extent can we use this to warn about chimney fire and perhaps even predict it?

Necessary techniques

Concretely, the following components were assessed in this first exploratory phase:

• measuring high temperatures in the case of heat exchangers in a non-invasive manner (with contact or by means of infrared)
• measuring high temperatures at chimney outlets in a non-invasive way (and which can withstand a fire)
• using sensor technology applied in the chimney/li>
• ind if and to what extent IoT data transfer is possible from a metal flue
• reflect on the variety of stove baffle plates that require more types of temperature sensors than one standard type

Future possibilities

Future possibilities

• the variation in stoves is very large; this makes one universal solution
• the amount of parameters determining the risk of chimney fire is quite high; that makes a predictive character very challenging
• human firing behaviour with choice of fuel (type, dry / wet) and moment of firing (yes/no in fog), the form of firing (high temperature firing for creosote combustion) is a very determining factor
• and precisely these elements are not all easy to measure.

More information?

There is no project website. We are with this project included in a TV broadcast of EenVandaag.

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