This paper presents a computational fluid dynamic analysis of a small-scale commercial biomass pellet boiler. Combustion of the particles in the bed plays a key role in the analysis of this kind of systems, and a stand-alone code was used in this work to provide the inlet conditions for the CFD analysis. Model predictions were compared with the experimental gas temperature and species concentration measurements, which were in good agreement. On the basis of the CFD analysis it can be concluded that the interaction of the particles in the bed and the poor mixing of the gases in the furnace are the key factors leading to the high emission levels that are typical of small-scale systems.

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Agent-oriented methodologies are paving the way towards the adoption of agent technology in software industry. However, there are still several issues to address: testing mechanisms, specialized verification methods, a formally defined agent oriented development process, illustrative case studies, or better development tools. This should be considered in a changing context because of innovations in related areas, which are integrated in the agent paradigm. In this paper, we show a coordinated approach to address these needs in the context of a research project, INGENIAS. The purpose of this project is to contribute to the agent-oriented software engineering field by providing, on the basis of a well specified software development process, an open multi-agent systems (MAS) development framework that integrates methods, techniques and tools. The paper will show problems we face in the projects and the solutions we adopt for them.