Scientific partnerships

The CSTJF and PERL carry out numerous research programmes with local partners: universities, schools, associations, etc. Two examples

Our local commitment to the energy and environmental transition.

Through the programs of the societal R&D team, the Company is continuously seeking to improve its activities, particularly by anticipating, performing integrated assessments of, and managing non-technical risks or conflicts inherent to operations. 

In this context, the Societal R&D team of TotalEnergies, based at the CSTJF, is a stakeholder in the actions of the TEEN (Territories in the energy and environmental transitions) Chair to rethink the role played by businesses and territorial players in terms of the energy transition.

The objective of the TEEN Chair, founded in 2018 by the University of Pau and the Pays de l’Adour (UPPA) in partnership with the Pau Béarn Pyrénées conurbation, the Compagnie d’Aménagement des Coteaux de Gascogne (development company for the hillsides of Gascogne), the CNRS, and the TotalEnergies E&P R&D division, is to analyze the tensions currently surrounding the energy and environmental transitions in order to understand them and, where possible, to find solutions.

As a two-way channel for expertise, it proposes tangible scenarios for the successful implementation of all territorial projects.

In partnership with the TEEN Chair, scientific studies were carried out on different technologies developed by the Company in relation to societal issues:

• The social acceptability of agrivoltaics
• The social acceptability of offshore wind
• The social acceptability of lithium
• The crowdfunding of renewable energies
• The social acceptability of hydrogen

For the past few months, the TEEN Chair has also been running a study on the social acceptability of electric charging stations.

• To find out more from the UPPA

Innovate with the expertise of local actors on 3D printing of heat exchangers.

Since 2018, the Jean Féger Scientific and Technical Center (CSTJF) has been conducting research on the 3D printing of heat exchangers* in close collaboration with its regional partners. This research strategy not only showcases expertise and local action, but also significantly reduces the costs generated by studies on additive manufacturing (AM).

Through a series of numerical tests, the R&D teams at the CSTJF and their partners are working on a new generation of heat exchangers, whose shape is the result of mathematical formulas to improve heat exchange: minimal surfaces starting with the Schwarz Diamond (Schwarz D) surface.

The CSTJF has an “innovation Booster” in Pau to lead this project and which operates in “maker” mode, using FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) printers to rapidly prototype PLA (Poly Lactic Acid, biosourced and bio-compostable materials) to iterate and validate the heat exchanger design.
The teams also relied on the specific competencies of their local partners:

• Chloé (a university department working on flow in porous media, funded by TotalEnergies) to produce the design and create the entire exchanger based on mathematical Schwarz D formulas, using the Matlab and Comsol software applications;
• The IUT in Tarbes, to print the exchanger using laser sintering on a “powder bed”. This produces a Polyamid exchanger to validate the homogeneity of the numerical model — a crucial step before the more costly manufacturing of the metal exchanger;
• The ENIT (The National Engineers’ School in Tarbes), for the aluminum printing that gives better heat transfer;
• The Pau IUT (UPPA) – Heat and Energy engineering to run tests on a test bed.

Such partnerships contribute to modernizing heat exchangers through 3D printing and to reduce the weight while maximizing efficiency. If the tests prove conclusive, TotalEnergies would be able to use less energy and thereby reduce its CO₂ emissions.

*A heat exchanger is a system whereby heat energy from one fluid is transferred to another without them mixing.