Ultra-low temperature freezers are vital equipment in biobanking and pharmaceutical laboratories, playing a crucial role in safeguarding temperature-sensitive products like vaccines, tissues, and biological samples. This calls for a surveillance system that constantly monitors the freezers, promptly triggering alarms whenever temperatures exceed predefined maximum limits. Such alerts enable laboratory managers to react swiftly, minimising potential product and economic losses. In the event of a failure, all stored items must be moved quickly to avoid their degradation. Research conducted within the Danish bio-bank sector revealed that current surveillance systems only activate after a failure has occurred and that the introduction of fault-detection mechanisms for predictive maintenance would significantly benefit their operations by reducing repair and operational costs and mitigating the risk of compromising stored contents. In this context, this study aims to analyse the operational data of ultra-low temperature freezers and develop a data-driven fault-detection algorithm based on this data. Historical data is also used as a benchmark for validation. Once developed, the algorithm will undergo testing on the actual freezers in a Danish Biobank.

Bio:
Francesco D'Ettorre is an consultant in Refrigeration and Heat Pump Technology at the Danish Technological Institute.
Hold a PhD in Energy Engineering from the University of Pisa, where I specialised in Hybrid Heat Pumps and Model Predictive Control. Afterwards, as a postdoctoral researcher at DTU Compute, I delved deeper into control strategies and flexibility procurement from small-scale heat pumps, sharpening my skills in their modelling and control. Today, as a Consultant at the Danish Technological Institute, my passion lies in advancing CO2 refrigeration systems for supermarkets, heat recovery, and investigating data-driven control strategies to maximize energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness in refrigeration and heat pump technologies.

9TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

Francesco D'Ettorre

Fault decection in Ultra-low temperature freezers

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Francesco D'Ettorre