Blueprint: Brick-Kiln Waste-Heat Recovery (from DOI 10.5281/zenodo.24108732)
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: DESIGN BLUEPRINT - SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED - NOT BUILT. A build-ready design blueprint derived from the source paper 'Waste-Heat Recovery for a Small Intermittent Brick Kiln: Air Preheat and Brick Drying' (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.24108732). It specifies a bypassed steel-tube recuperator (15.0 m2) that preheats combustion air to 314 C, recovering 8.93 GJ per batch, followed by a brick-drying shed delivering a further 2.28 GJ of useful heat, for a total fuel saving of 747 kg of firewood per batch (19.7 percent) and a payback of 2.12 years at 70 batches per year and 75 USD per tonne of wood, with the fouling, acid-dew-point and draft defences specified and priced, the installation and retrofit sequence, failure modes and maintenance schedule stated, and the rejected thermoelectric and organic Rankine options noted as rejected. The blueprint states at full size that the system is not worth building below about 31 batches per year. Every quantity is taken from the source paper or derived in the accompanying compute.py from the source paper's parameters (derived items marked); nothing has been built or measured. AI use disclosed: Dave, an AI research system, assisted with the computation and drafting of the source paper and with the preparation of this blueprint. The author of record is William Alexander Aldred.
Author: Aldred, William Alexander
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225734286