Robust and Responsive Methodology for Economically Based Design of Industrial Cogeneration Systems

Industrial Engineering and Managemen

LDEF: A bibliography with abstracts

The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) was a free-flying cylindrical structure that housed self-contained experiments in trays mounted on the exterior of the structure. Launched into orbit from the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984, the LDEF spent almost six years in space before being recovered in 1990. The 57 experiments investigated the effects of the low earth orbit environment on materials, coatings, electronics, thermal systems, seeds, and optics. It also carried experiments that measured crystals growth, cosmic radiation, and micrometeoroids. This bibliography contains 435 selected records from the NASA aerospace database covering the years 1973 through June of 1992. The citations are arranged within subject categories by author and date of publication

Optimal integration of wind energy with a renewable based microgrid for industrial applications.

Wind energy in urban environments is a rapidly developing technology influenced by the terrain specifications, local wind characteristics and urban environments such as buildings architecture. The urban terrain is more complex than for open spaces and has a critical influence on wind flow at the studied site. This approach proposes an integration of the surrounding buildings in the studied site and then simulating the wind flow, considering both simple and advanced turbulence models to quantify and simulate the wind flow fields in an urban environment and evaluate the potential wind energy. These simulations are conducted with an accessible computational fluid dynamic tool (Windsim) implementing available commercial wind turbines and performed on a case study at Agder county in the southern part of Norway for an industrial facility specialized in food production. Several simulations were considered and repeated to achieve a convergence after adding the buildings to the domain, which mainly simulates the wind flow patterns, power density, and annual energy production. These simulations will be compared with previous results, which adapted different manipulation techniques applied on the same site where the elevation and roughness data were manipulated to mimic the actual conditions in the studied urban site. The current approach (adding the buildings) showed a reduction in the average wind speed and annual energy production for certain levels with increased turbulence intensity surrounding the buildings. Moreover, a feasibility study is conducted to analyze the techno-economic of the facility's hybrid system, including the planned installation of a wind energy system using commercial software (HOMER). The simulation results indicated that HOMER is conservative in estimating the annual energy production of both wind and solar power systems. Nevertheless, the analysis showed that integrating a wind turbine of 600 kW would significantly reduce the dependence on the grid and transform the facility into a prosumer with more than 1.6 GWh traded with the grid annually. However, the proposed system's net present cost would be 1.43 M USD based on installation, maintenance, and trading with the grid, without including self-consumption, which counts for approximately 1.5 GWh annually. Moreover, the proposed system has a low levelized cost of energy of 0.039$ per kWh, which is slightly above the levelized cost of wind energy but 2 to 4 times less than the installed solar panels

Mitigating Global Temperature Change Through Industrial Sector Improvements: A Case Study In Automotive Manufacturing

Manufacturing is an integral part of our country’s flow of products and people and a top contributor to carbon emissions, promoting global temperature rise. During processing, toxic substances are emitted across the value chain. These emissions account for nearly 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and the World. Until 2023, an accessible pathway for manufacturing companies to transition to net-zero emissions hasn’t been made readily available. The current research was conducted to determine if reducing carbon emissions in manufacturing facilities through efficiency improvements, process optimization, and technology advancements can mitigate global temperature change.This quantitative, mixed-method approach was conducted by investigating major constraints and evaluating the current state of energy security in manufacturing. A feasibility study was conducted on deploying biomass-to-energy as the primary energy source for the facility and the state of Missouri. A case study was conducted at an automotive manufacturing facility to measure efficiency improvements in a real-life context. The research shows that emissions reductions from manufacturing favor the ability to impact global temperature change. Education was found to be the top constraint by cost and impact. Energy security within the sector and the United States is favorable at an index value lower than 70. Improvements in energy efficiency and new processing methods showed favorable business savings (+$125k) and emissions reductions (-200k tons) in less than a year. The feasibility of biomass-to-energy showed being able to become a primary supplier of energy to the plant and Missouri. Findings indicated that it is necessary to promote and mesh education, technology growth, and energy-saving efforts to have a favorable impact on global temperature change

Using Life Cycle Assessment as a Tool to Evaluate and Make Recommendations for Future Biopharmaceutical Manufacture

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a well-regarded methodology used to evaluate the environmental impacts of a system, essential to supporting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. Due to the increasing need for companies to act more environmentally friendly, employing LCA to systematically and quantitatively evaluate their products and processes would be necessary. To date, little LCA work has been applied to biopharmaceutical production; this may be due to a lack of inputs and outputs data, methodology available or knowledge related to LCA. Hence, this project sought to develop guidance to apply LCA to biopharmaceutical processes, considering questions that companies would typically require to address. To this end, the LCA methodology was operationalised to the production of a major biopharmaceutical product, 6-APA, to demonstrate the advantages and limitations of LCA. As 6-APA represents the largest production mass output of the industry, industry-wide practical steps and policy considerations to reduce environmental impacts were drawn. A series of LCA analyses, including sensitivity analyses, hot-spot analyses, scenario analyses and comparative study were conducted on the "average" 6-APA manufacturing process, modelled with input including that from industry contacts. This set of analyses ensured that recommendations drawn from the LCA study considered all factors, including the robustness and significance of results and the relationship between process parameters, specifically product titre, scale, location, and environmental impacts. Hot-spot analysis was conducted on nine scenarios where 6-APA production was considered to locate in different countries. Results concurred that the highest impacts in most environmental impact categories were derived from the supply of essential production materials and the electricity mix. This underscored the importance of considering the source (or the choice of suppliers) for the process inputs. The normalisation methodology was applied to estimate the relative impact of 6-APA manufacture globally and to assess the significance of the impacts generated. It showed that ecotoxicity impacts from coal energy generation in China were highly significant when production was scaled to global levels. This posed the question of whether the level of impacts generated in this single location was environmentally damaging. Hence, the thesis suggests that governments may wish to take steps to prevent potential environmental damages from possible over-concentrations of impacts. This thesis also highlights areas of further work, including improvements to inventory data, the assessment of later biopharmaceutical life cycle stages, and economic and social LCA, to complement and enhance the life cycle environmental impact assessment presented here

An Environmental-Based Perspective Framework: Integrating IoT Technology into a Sustainable Automotive Supply Chain

Purpose - Over the next decade, humanity is going to face big environmental problems, and considering these serious issues, businesses are adopting environmentally responsible practices. To put forward specific measures to achieve a more prosperous environmental future, this study aims to develop an environment-based perspective framework by integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) technology into a sustainable automotive supply chain (SASC). Design/methodology/approach - The study presents a conceptual environmental framework - based on 29 factors constituting four stakeholders’ rectifications - that holistically assess the SASC operations as part of the ReSOLVE model utilizing IoT. Then, experts from the SASC, IoT, and sustainability areas participated in two rigorous rounds of a Delphi study to validate the framework. Findings – The results indicate that the conceptual environmental framework proposed would help companies enhance the connectivity between major IoT tools in SASC, which would help develop congruent strategies for inducing sustainable growth. Originality/value - This study adds value to existing knowledge on SASC sustainability and digitalization in the context where the SASC is under enormous pressure, competitiveness, and increased variability