Diseño para operabilidad: Una revisión de enfoques y estrategias de solución

In the last decades the chemical engineering scientific research community has largely addressed the design-foroperability problem. Such an interest responds to the fact that the operability quality of a process is determined by design, becoming evident the convenience of considering operability issues in early design stages rather than later when the impact of modifications is less effective and more expensive. The necessity of integrating design and operability is dictated by the increasing complexity of the processes as result of progressively stringent economic, quality, safety and environmental constraints. Although the design-for-operability problem concerns to practically every technical discipline, it has achieved a particular identity within the chemical engineering field due to the economic magnitude of the involved processes. The work on design and analysis for operability in chemical engineering is really vast and a complete review in terms of papers is beyond the scope of this contribution. Instead, two major approaches will be addressed and those papers that in our belief had the most significance to the development of the field will be described in some detail.En las últimas décadas, la comunidad científica de ingeniería química ha abordado intensamente el problema de diseño-para-operabilidad. Tal interés responde al hecho de que la calidad operativa de un proceso esta determinada por diseño, resultando evidente la conveniencia de considerar aspectos operativos en las etapas tempranas del diseño y no luego, cuando el impacto de las modificaciones es menos efectivo y más costoso. La necesidad de integrar diseño y operabilidad esta dictada por la creciente complejidad de los procesos como resultado de las cada vez mayores restricciones económicas, de calidad de seguridad y medioambientales. Aunque el problema de diseño para operabilidad concierne a prácticamente toda disciplina, ha adquirido una identidad particular dentro de la ingeniería química debido a la magnitud económica de los procesos involucrados. El trabajo sobre diseño y análisis para operabilidad es realmente vasto y una revisión completa en términos de artículos supera los alcances de este trabajo. En su lugar, se discutirán los dos enfoques principales y aquellos artículos que en nuestra opinión han tenido mayor impacto para el desarrollo de la disciplina serán descriptos con cierto detalle.Fil: Blanco, Anibal Manuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química; ArgentinaFil: Bandoni, Jose Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química; Argentin

Optimal operation of combined heat and power systems: an optimization-based control strategy

The use of decentralized Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants is increasing since the high levels of efficiency they can achieve. Thus, to determine the optimal operation of these systems in dynamic energy-market scenarios, operational constraints and the time-varying price profiles for both electricity and the required resources should be taken into account. In order to maximize the profit during the operation of the CHP plant, this paper proposes an optimization-based controller designed according to the Economic Model Predictive Control (EMPC) approach, which uses a non-constant time step along the prediction horizon to get a shorter step size at the beginning of that horizon while a lower resolution for the far instants. Besides, a softening of related constraints to meet the market requirements related to the sale of electric power to the grid point is proposed. Simulation results show that the computational burden to solve optimization problems in real time is reduced while minimizing operational costs and satisfying the market constraints. The proposed controller is developed based on a real CHP plant installed at the ETA research factory in Darmstadt, Germany.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Integrated Dynamic Facade Control with an Agent-based Architecture for Commercial Buildings

Dynamic façades have significant technical potential to minimize heating, cooling, and lighting energy use and peak electric demand in the perimeter zone of commercial buildings, but the performance of these systems is reliant on being able to balance complex trade-offs between solar control, daylight admission, comfort, and view over the life of the installation. As the context for controllable energy-efficiency technologies grows more complex with the increased use of intermittent renewable energy resources on the grid, it has become increasingly important to look ahead towards more advanced approaches to integrated systems control in order to achieve optimum life-cycle performance at a lower cost. This study examines the feasibility of a model predictive control system for low-cost autonomous dynamic façades. A system architecture designed around lightweight, simple agents is proposed. The architecture accommodates whole building and grid level demands through its modular, hierarchical approach. Automatically-generated models for computing window heat gains, daylight illuminance, and discomfort glare are described. The open source Modelica and JModelica software tools were used to determine the optimum state of control given inputs of window heat gains and lighting loads for a 24-hour optimization horizon. Penalty functions for glare and view/ daylight quality were implemented as constraints. The control system was tested on a low-power controller (1.4 GHz single core with 2 GB of RAM) to evaluate feasibility. The target platform is a low-cost ($35/unit) embedded controller with 1.2 GHz dual-core cpu and 1 GB of RAM. Configuration and commissioning of the curtainwall unit was designed to be largely plug and play with minimal inputs required by the manufacturer through a web-based user interface. An example application was used to demonstrate optimal control of a three-zone electrochromic window for a south-facing zone. The overall approach was deemed to be promising. Further engineering is required to enable scalable, turnkey solutions