Management and design of biogas digesters: A non-calibrated heat transfer model

A thermal balance modeling framework is developed, based on heat transfer-resistance networks. The heat transfer model accounts for effects of digester- design, location and operation, including effects of solar irradiance, external heating and ambient climate. We demonstrate extendibility of the framework by using the model in dynamic simulations of substrate temperature for digesters comprising two very different designs. Digester designs modeled include fixed-dome, buried, uninsulated and unheated household digesters in Hanoi, Vietnam, and an industrial-scale anaerobic digester located at a wastewater treatment plant in Esbjerg, Denmark. The modeled temperature profiles were evaluated against measured substrate temperatures over long periods, from 7 months and up. For the two Hanoi digesters, root-mean-square-error were 1.43 °C and 0.92 °C, with Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficients (NS-C) of 0.87 and 0.93 respectively. For the industrial digester in Esbjerg root-mean-square-error was 0.48 °C with an NS-C of 0.94. The model was not calibrated prior simulation, suggesting good predictive performance.