Instructor: Keld Sørensen
Danish Exergy Technology A/S, Skorping, Nordjylland, Denmark

Date: Wednesday May 19 2021.
Time: 9:00 am to 1:00 pm
Location: Online
Language: This workshop will be in english
Cost: see Registration 

StaldVent 5.0 is a decision support PC-program for the design and troubleshooting of ventilation and heating systems for livestock buildings.  It may also be used to model and analyze energy consumption when used with local climate data.  Users can input customized component data files for equipment specification and parts lists using market-available ventilation equipment.

The main focus of this workshop is to understand the capabilities of the StaldVent software, to be able to set up a livestock housing project and work through the ventilation and heating design, and to learn how to create weather files and component files that maximize the versatility of the software.  

StaldVent can be used for ventilation design for dairy, swine, and poultry houses, with options for different types of production and flooring systems.

Course Overview

This introductory half day workshop covers key topics in setting up livestock building ventilation projects in StaldVent:

1. Overview of StaldVent
2. Installation and Basic Settings:
   • assigning directories,
   • CSV-format compatibility
   • heat production model selection
3. Navigation for Design:
   • menus for data entry
   • design values for ventilation and heating
   • summer and winter design process
   • case study example: broilers
   • case study example: hogs
4. Ventilation Troubleshooting:
   • ventilation setting adjustment options
5. Creating Custom Files:
   • weather files
   • component files
6. Energy Use Simulation
   • referencing weather file
   • case study example: broilers
7. Additional Modules Overview
   • ammonia/air-cleaning
   • cooling/humidifying
   • tunnel ventilation

Following completion of this course, the trainee should

• have an understanding of the ventilation design and troubleshooting capabilities of StaldVent, including how to work through a new project design
• have basic knowledge of how to prepare component files for equipment specification
• have a working knowledge of how to prepare weather files for energy use simulations

Who can attend?

Anyone who has an interest in livestock facility ventilation design can attend.  No previous experience with StaldVent is required (the trial version will be provided to participants in advance of the workshop).  This training workshop may be particularly useful for consulting professionals, biosystems/agricultural engineering students and ventilation/heating equipment suppliers.

Please note that the participants should bring their own PC laptops if they want hands-on experience in working through the lecture topics.

Technical requirements:

Participants should bring their own laptop to the session with StaldVent software trial version installed in advance of the workshop.

About the instructor

Keld Sørensen, M.Sc., Mechanical Engineer, was educated at the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark. He has been working in the agriculture industry since 1995.  Keld developed the StaldVent software together with the Danish Agriculture Research Centre, Bygholm, now managed by Aarhus University. As the owner of Danish Exergy Technology A/S, Keld is now responsible for maintenance and development of the StaldVent software working in close cooperation with Danish Universities and leading ventilation companies.

During his career, Keld has been working with the design and troubleshooting of barn systems, and models for the prediction of gas emission from animal houses including air cleaning systems.

Mr. Sørensen is currently involved in several research projects in collaboration with Universities, Research Institutes and ventilation companies. Recently a model for wind effects on natural and mechanical ventilation systems has been developed.

Besides his work within the agriculture industry, Keld also has been involved in the design of numerous biomass and solar boilers.

For more information, please contact Keld at:  Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.

Instructor: Hossein Bonakdari, PhD, P.Eng.
Department of Soil and Agri-Food Engineering, Laval University, Quebec, Canada

Date (part 1): Monday May 17 2021, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. EDT
Date (part 2): Tuesday May 18 2021, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. EDT
Location: Virtual
Language: This workshop will be in english
Cost: see Registration 

Workshop description:

Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and machine learning approaches will revolutionize many aspects of future agriculture engineering field. AI can be used as a promising tool to tackle different problems but related aspects of agricultural practical cases as great concern all over the world. The main focus of this course is to understand and discuss the recent developments in AI applications relating to practical engineering application. This course introduces a variety of different topics in AI approaches and learning methods in modeling and prediction of complex datasets. All codes are user friendly and trainees after this course will be able to use them for their cases. 

Course Overview

This introductory one day workshop covers key topics in Artificial Intelligence application in Agricultural Engineering:

1. Data acquisition/Preprocessing:
   • outliers detection,
   • transferring raw information into usable data,
   • splitting the data into training & testing sets
2. Classification:
   • decision tree,
   • support vector machine.
3. Modeling tools:
   • Multilinear Regression (MLR)
   • Multi-layer perceptrons (MLP)
   • Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS),
   • Extreme Learning Machines (ELM),
4. Post processing:
   • analysis of statistical indices,
   • scatter plot

Following completion of this course, trainee should

• have an understanding of major AI techniques,
• have a working knowledge of how to apply AI technologies to real-world datasets,
• have gained experience designing and applying AI techniques in Agricultural Engineering practical problems

Who can attend?

Anyone who wants to learn about practical application of machine learning techniques can attend the workshop. No knowledge about programming is required.

Please note that the participants should bring their own laptops with minimum specifications as described in following section.

Technical requirements:

Participants are requested to bring their own laptops with MATLAB software.

About the instructor

Hossein Bonakdari, Ph.D, P.Eng., earned his Ph.D in Civil Engineering at the University of Caen-France. He has worked for several organizations like most recently as faculty member of department of Soils and Agri-Food Engineering at Laval University, Quebec. He has supervised several PhD and MSc students with teaching experience of more than 12 years in field of Artificial Intelligence application in practical Engineering applications. His fields of specialization and interest include: practical application of soft computing techniques in engineering problems. Results obtained from his researches have been published in more than 180 papers in international journals (h-index=26). He has also more than 150 presentations in national and international conference. He published two books. Dr. Bonakdari is currently leading several research projects in collaboration with industrials partners.

For more information, please contact Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.