Project period: 2015-2017
Partners: Valmet AB, SCA Forest Products AB, Stora Enso Research AB.
Project leader: Gunilla Pettersson
Researchers: Hans Höglund, Per Engstrand, Dariusz Zasadowski, Magnus Norgren, Sven Norgren, Staffan Nyström, Jan-Erik Berg.
Summary: One way to increase the export value for the Swedish forest industry of wood based paperboard by means of sustainable development, is to use more of fibre materials produced at high yield (>90%) as in chemimechanical pulping (CTMP) processes. In Sweden; spruce is by far the most common wood species as raw material in production of CTMP for manufacturing of paperboard. CTMP is also manufactured from hardwoods (aspen and birch) as market pulp but is so far not commonly used as a component in high quality paperboards. However, especially birch fibres have some morphological advantages in comparison to softwood fibres, which might be possible to take advantage of.
The project goal is to develop and demonstrate technologies, which will make it favourable to use high yield pulps, (HYP), as low energy chemimechanical pulp CTMP based on hardwoods, particularly birch, in manufacturing of high quality paperboard. The total energy consumption in refining of such hardwood CTMP should be lower than 700 kWh/ton, to be compared to about 1200 kWh/ton in standard CTMP manufacturing from birch at yield >90%. The CTMP should preferably be used in middle plies in paperboards, which will offer opportunities to reduce grammage at given bending stiffness and improve brightness as well as surface smoothness in final products in comparison at use of softwood CTMP. The extractives of birch CTMP should be reduced to such a low level that they do not cause any problems regarding taste and odour.
Research actions within the KK-Environment
All research projects within the Mid Sweden University's KK-Environment are conducted in co-production with the industry and follows the research strategy TIE -Transforming the Industrial Ecosystem. Here is a brief description of our strategic actions and research actions that is funded by the Knowledge Foundation within our KK-Environment.
Our five strategic activities connect the research environments at our research centres STC and FSCN. The strategic activities are:
- e2mp - Energy Efficient Mechanical Pulping
- FLEX - Master by Research
- FORIC - Forest as a Resource Industrial College
- EISS - Embedded Sensor Systems
- KM2 - Large-area functional surfaces
In alphabetical order
AHYP - Advanced HYP for paperboard
ASIS - Autonomous Sensors for Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks
Project period: 2015-2019
Partners: ABB Corporate Research, Bosch Rexroth, Shortlink AB.
Project leader: Bengt Oelmann
Researchers: Sebastian Bader, Mikael Gidlund, Muhammad Imran, Mattias O’Nils.
Summary: ASIS is addressing the challenges of making the wireless sensor network technology competitive in relation to wired networks with respect to reliability, predictability, communication performance, and maintainability. Three research issues in wireless network communication, in sensor processing, and energy harvesting will be addressed in a coordinated manner to advance the field of wireless sensor network technology. The overall research question is formulated as: Can autonomous wireless sensor networks, fulfilling the requirements of industrial applications, be designed? And if not, which are they key issues to address in research in order to succeed?
DAWN - Data Analytics in (Wireless) Industrial Networks
Project period: 2015-2018
Partners: Umetrics AB, Bosch Rexroth, ServaNet AB, and Dewire AB
Project leader: Tingting Zhang
Researchers: Stefan Forsström, Mikael Gidlund
Summary: In 2020, about 75 billion different devices to be connected to the Internet and together they make the so-called Internet of Things. The process industry can really take advantage of the increased data availability in terms of both productivity and energy efficiency. In this project, researchers will focus on the development of data analysis system for large-scale sensor networks. The aim is to increase capacity for the industry's data management by developing new data mining algorithms and integrating data analysis with the Internet of Things platform, SensibleThings, developed at Mid Sweden University.
E2mp - Energy efficient mechanical pulping
Project period: 2011-2017
Partners: Andritz AB, Holmen AB, Metso Paper Sundsvall AB, SCA R&D Centre AB, Stora Enso AB
Project leader: Per Engstrand
Summary: e2mp is a mechanical pulping initiative by Holmen, Norske Skog, SCA, Stora Enso and the Swedish Energy Agency regarding reduction of energy efficiency. Administrated by FSCN, Mid Sweden University.
FLIS - Characterization of wood disintegration processes
Project period: 2014-2017
Partners: Andritz Iggesund Tools, Iggesund Paperboard, PulpEye
Project leader: Benny Thörnberg
Researchers: Lisbeth Hellström, Cheng Peng
Summary: The condition of cutting tools used in a wood disintegration process has a large impact on the quality of the products. Today we don’t know how long the intervals for replacement of worn out tools should be. This project aims at gaining knowledge for how process parameters for wood disintegration are related. By using optical techniques, wireless on-rotor sensing and multivariate modeling we want to find out the most feasible and cost efficient way to monitor these parameters online.
FNMech - Fibre network design: Applications to Hygiene Products
Project period: 2015-2017
Partners: SCA Hygiene Products AB, SCA Forest Products AB, SCA Tissue France SA, Nalco Company Naperville
Project leader: Tetsu Uesaka
Researchers: Tetsu Uesaka, Christina Dahlström, Majid Alimadadi, Amanda Mattsson
Summary: In this project we consider fibre network as a micro-mechanical and microfluidics system, and investigate the non-uniform deformation of fibre network and the transport of complex fluids (body fluids) within the network. Such a problem is currently the core issues related to the new product development of hygiene products.
The primary objective of this project is to develop fundamental understandings of the role of fibre network structures and fibre properties in the network deformation and the mass transport, particularly on the microscopic level. Based on this, we plan to develop predictive design criteria and design tools for both processes and products together with industrial partners. We take both theoretical and experimental approaches. On the theoretical side we perform particle-dynamics modeling in order to obtain information on microscopic phenomena of network deformation, fluid flow, and their interactions (multi-phase particle dynamics). On the experimental side, we use confocal microscopy and cryo-SEM analyses of microfluidic phenomena in order to validate the model and to obtain insights of the microscopic mechanisms.
With these fundamental understandings and insights, and predictive design criteria obtained from this project, the industries, which are positioned in the supply chain of this growing healthcare and hygiene market, can accelerate their product developments. Particularly the pulp and paper industries in the region will be able to utilise and promote northern softwood fibres as a competitive edge in the global market by tailoring fibre properties.
Foric - Forest as a Resource Industrial College
Project period: 2014-2021
Partners: SCA Timber AB, Sense Air AB, Ragn-Sells AB, Frontway AB, Sundsvall Energi AB, SCA Forest products AB, Valmet AB, PulpEye AB, Stora Enso Kvarnsveden, Sylvestris AB, Skogforsk AB, MoRe research AB, Mantex AB, Innventia AB
Project leader: Per Engstrand
Summary: FORIC is a new graduate school in close cooperation with the business companies in Sweden where graduate students will increase their competitiveness. Academia and industry will benefit from interacting with each other.
ID-POS - Large Areas for RFID Identification, Positioning and Interaction
Project period: 2014-2017
Partners: IDAG Design Studio AB, Ovako Tube & Ring AB, Sandvik Materials Technology AB, Skultuna Flexible AB, Sweprod Graphics AB.
Project leader: Johan Sidén
Researchers: Henrik Andersson
Summary: In 2020 there will be up to 50 billion devices connected to the Internet. A growing part of these devices are RFID- and NFC technology. Today a RFID systems have the ability to determine the presence and ID-number of a tag. In this project researcher want to investigate how a RFID system can accurately determine unique position of tags distributed over a specific area or volume. This with RFID reader antennas that is relatively thin but of significantly large area is used to identify and position RFID tags placed upon the reader area.
kW Converters - High Frequency Medium Power Isolated Converters
Project period: 2014-2017
Partners: Saab AB, Elektronikgruppen AB, Powerbox AB, Seps Technologies.
Project leader: Kent Bertilsson
Summary: Mid Sweden University have in a few years reached the research front in high frequency magnetics and converters for power transfer applications in the power levels of 50-100W. This project targeting the medium power level converters (few kW) at high frequency, based on the expertise in the existing research carried out in power electronics group. Together with industrial partners such as SAAB anew, more effective high frequency kW converters will be developed.
Light-weight Structural Composites from Fibre-based Materials, Reliability-based Design
Project period: 2014-2017
Partners: SCA R&D Centre AB
Project leader: Tetsu Uesaka
Summary:
M2M Communication - Reliable and Secure M2M Communication in Cyber-Physical Systems
Project period: 2015-2018
Partners: ABB Corporate Research, Vinnter AB and Sundsvall Energi AB.
Project leader: Patrik Österberg
Researchers: Ulf Jennehag, Tingting Zhang, Mikael Gidlund (new Ph.D-student)
Summary: A smart grid network is a cyber-physical system that integrates power infrastructure with information technology. It is anticipated that smart grid networks will use machine-to-machine (M2M) communication infrastructure and advanced control techniques for improved power distribution and management. The wireless M2M business is expected to exceed $136 Billion in revenue by the end of 2018. However, it cannot penetrate the smart grid network market until several key challenges such as reliability, interoperability, scalability, security, and real-time communication have been addressed and solved properly. The scope of this project is to investigate and propose new reliable and secure concepts of M2M communication in smart grid networks and to demonstrate the achieved results in a proof-of-concept demonstration in a real environment. We will approach these challenges applying theory and methods from several different disciplines such as network security, signal processing, control theory, and wireless communication.
Paper Solar Cells
Project period: 2014-2016
Partners: Iggesund Paperboard AB, Superior Graphite Europé Ltd, Laser Cut AB
Laser Nova AB, STT Emtec AB, Vesta Si Europé AB, Sol Voltaics AB
Project leader: Håkan Olin
Summary:
PlenoCap - Plenoptisk infångning och beräkningsbaserad fotografering
Project period: 2013-2015
Partners: Adopticum, Ericsson AB, LC-Tec, Optronic
Projectleader: Roger Olsson
Summary: Plenocap aims to study and improve the plenoptic camera capture systems, develop methods and algorithms, and investigate their effect on future immersive video communication services.
Robust Wireless Communication in Harsh Radio Environments
Project period: 2013-2015
Partners: ABB, AngloGold Ashanti, Boliden, LKAB, Swedish Connection.
Project leader: Mikael Gidlund
Researchers: Ulf Jennehag, Stefan Pettersson, Tingting Zhang, Patrik Österberg.
Summary: The mining industry is facing a new challenge. There is a global increase in demand for commodities driven by the developing countries. At the same time easy access to high grade ore is decreasing. Increasing the level of automation and improving operational performance is a key to meet these challenges.
SURF - Surface characterization of industrial large area products
Project period: 2015-2017
Partners: Iggesund Paperboard, BillerudKorsnäs Frövi, BIM Kemi, MoRe Research Project leader: Jan Thim
Researchers: Mattias Andersson, Anatoliy Manuilskiy, Niklas Johansson.
Abstract summary: The paper- and paperboard industries are undergoing a transition in terms of product specializations. Newspaper is not as much in demand any more, the competition in paperboard products is hardening, forcing the paper- and paperboard industries to start producing new products, where there is even higher demand on surface characteristics, since most products will undergo high quality print. This project will attempt to bridge the gap of modern industrial measurement needs for surface characterizations. We will extract new methods for characterizing surface parameters and to – wherever possible – adapt them for usage online/inline. Together with leading industrial partners we will extract, adapt, optimize and test these methods.
