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Dr. Ken Bruton

Biography

Ken is doctorate level graduate of the UCC School of Engineering with over 15 years’ experience working in the commercial & industrial energy efficiency sector. Ken holds a six sigma green belt in LEAN manufacturing which he applies to his intelligent efficiency work. Ken has also worked as an Energy Agreements Support Manager with SEAI, where he mentored many of the largest energy users in Ireland in the implementation of the IS393, EN16001 and most recently ISO50001 energy management system standards.

Ken works closely with industrial partners to develop intelligent energy and automation system analytics solutions to optimise their systems. Ken has previously worked on the i2e2 Technology Centre (www.i2e2.ie) Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Automated Fault Detection and Diagnostics tool development project, which won the UCC ICT invention of the year in 2012 (http://businessandleadership.com/leadership/item/41427-ucc-invention-of-the-year) and iMERC Innovator of the year 2013 runner up (http://www.ucc.ie/en/ierg/news/fullstory-279533-en.html) and SEAI Energy Research Award 2014 (http://www.seai.ie/Your_Business/Sustainable_Energy_Awards/Winners_2014/Research/Research-Winner.html).

Research Interests

• Energy Efficiency & Industrial Energy Management
• The integration of Industrial Energy systems into smart grid
• Maintenance optimisation systems with particular interests in automated fault detection systems
• LEAN Six Sigma and control systems optimisation
• Decision support systems to assist the circular economy

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Publications

Selected Publications 

Ken Bruton, Paul Raftery, Peter O’Donovan, Niall Aughney, Marcus M. Keane, Dominic D.T.J. O'Sullivan, “Development and alpha testing of a cloud based automated fault detection and diagnosis tool for Air Handling Units”, Automation in Construction 2013,Volume 39, 1 April 2014, Pages 70-83 (DOI) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2013.12.006 

Ken Bruton, Paul Raftery, Barry Kennedy, Marcus M. Keane, Dominic D.T.J. O'Sullivan, "Review of automated fault detection and diagnostic tools in air handling units", Energy Efficiency: Volume 7, Issue 2 (2014), Page 335-351, (DOI) http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12053-013-9238- 

Peter O'Donovan, Kevin Leahy, Ken Bruton & Dominic T.J. O'Sullivan, “An industrial big data pipeline for data-driven analytics maintenance applications in large-scale smart manufacturing facilities”, Journal of Big Data 2:25, (16 November 2015), DOI 10.1186/s40537-015-0034-z 

K Leahy, CV Gallagher, K Bruton, P O'Donovan, D.T.J. O'Sullivan

Automatically identifying and predicting unplanned wind turbine stoppages using scada and alarms system data: Case study and results, Energy and Buildings - 2017 

A Brem, MM Adrita, DTJ O'Sullivan, K Bruton

Industrial smart and micro grid systems–A systematic mapping study, Journal of Cleaner Production, 2019 

See Dr Bruton’s Google Scholar profile for further publications

Professional Activity

Dr Bruton is a certified measurement and verification professional who regularly interacts with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland on Industrial Energy Management within the Large Industry Energy Network (LIEN). 

Dr Bruton is a funded investigator in the Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland (MAREI) (https://www.marei.ie/) Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research centre and also within the Energy Resilience and the Built Environment (ERBE) (https://erbecdt.ac.uk/) centre for doctoral training (CDT) where he collaborates with complimentary engineering disciplines within Loughborough University and University College London to train the next generation of energy research professionals. 

Dr Bruton undertakes collaborative research with local large industrial companies with a view to assisting them reaching a Net Zero emissions state by 2050.

Teaching Activity

Dr Bruton delivers the following modules: 

CE2003 - Fluids Mechanics I

CE2004 - Fluids Mechanics II

CE3007 - Hydraulics