A Software Toolbox for Realistic Dataset Generation for Testing Online and Offline 3D Bin Packing Algorithms

Packing products into a pallet or other medium is an unavoidable activity for producing companies. In many cases, packing is based on operator experience and training using packing patterns that have worked before. Automated packing, on the other hand, requires a systematic procedure for devising packing solutions. In the scientific literature, this problem is known as 3D bin packing (3DBP) and many authors have proposed exact and heuristic solutions for many variations of the problem. There is, however, a lack of datasets that can be used to test and validate such solutions. Many of the available datasets use randomly generated products with extremely limited connection to real practice. Furthermore, they contain a reduced number of product configurations and ignore that packing relates to customers orders, which have specific relative mixes of products. This paper proposes a software toolbox for generating arbitrarily large datasets for 3DBPP based on real industry data. The toolbox was developed in connection with the analysis of a real dataset from the food and beverages sector, which enabled the creation of several synthetic datasets. The toolbox and the synthetic datasets are publicly available and can be used to generate additional data for testing and validating 3DBP solutions. The industry is increasingly becoming data dependent and driven. The ability to generate good quality synthetic data to support the development of solutions to real industry problems is of extreme importance. This work is a step in that direction in a domain where open data are scarce.Funding Agencies|Strategic Innovation Program Produktion2030; Vinnova; Formas; Swedish Energy Agency [2021-01283]</p

Experimental investigation of a novel waste heat based food drying system

World Food Program reports that more than 821 million people are subjected to acute hunger despite sufficient amount of food being produced. One of the underlying reasons is the food wastage due to poor preservation techniques and the energy cost of the established processing methods. Drying techniques are an effective means for reducing post-harvest food loss. However, the existing industrial drying techniques consume 2025% of the energy used in the food processing chain. A system that utilizes the waste heat recovered from a diesel engine exhaust flue gas is proposed and an initial prototype tested. The system requires no external energy to operate the drying process; hence no CO2 is generated as a result of this process. Furthermore, the entropy is reduced by 0.206 kJ/kg.K as the overall thermal efficiency increases by 8.46%. It is estimated that the payback period is in the range of 321 days. Drying experiments were conducted to assess the dried food quality of five different staple food products, i.e. potato, pumpkin, carrot, radish, and apple. The drying performance (moisture removal rate) and product quality (Color analysis and Vitamin C analysis) conformed to the current industry standard. The overall performance assessment suggests that the system has the potential to reduce current levels of emission in food drying process and could be a stepping stone towards the development of energy-efficient food preservation technique

Renewable energy in Bangladesh: current situation and future prospect

Energy insufficiency is obstructing the socio-economic and industrial improvement of Bangladesh. Renewable energy contributes about 560 Megawatt (MW) of the total electricity production of 20,430 MW, which can be a sustainable solution to the demand-supply crisis. This paper, summarises the current energy situation of Bangladesh and examines the available renewable energy resources and their future prospect. It has been revealed that Bangladesh is heavily (62%) relying on natural gas although government has already taken steps to generate electricity from renewable energy sources. Current policies and legislations related to generation of renewable energy in Bangladesh have been discussed explicitly. Finally, some suggestions have been made to tackle the ongoing energy crisis in the country, in addition to the renewable energy.Abbreviations: GDP: Gross domestic product; RNPP: Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant; Tcf: Trillion cubic feet; IDCOL: Infrastructure development company limited; BPDB: Bangladesh Power Development Board: GS: Grameen Shakti; BWDB: Bangladesh Water Development Board: USD: United States Dollar; IPP: Independent power producer: BCAS: Bangladesh center for advanced studies; NWPGCL: North West Power Generation Company Limited: BCSIR: Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research; EGCB: Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh: WRA: Wind Resource Assessment; REB: Rural Electrification Board: BRAC: Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee; kW: Kilowatt: PJ: Petajoules; MW: Megawatt: IFRAD: Institute for fuel research and Development; GWh: Gigawatt hours: ICS: Improved Cooking Stoves; MWh: Megawatt hours: DoE: Department of Environment; TWh: Trillion-watt hour: DLS: Department of Livestock Services; RPCL: Rural Power Company Limited: mmcfd: million cubic feet per day; APSCL: Ashugang Power Station Company Limited: BSCIC: Bangladesh Small &amp; Cottage Industries Corporation (BS

Multidisciplinary Automation in Design of Turbine Vane Cooling Channels

In the quest to enhance the efficiency of gas turbines, there is a growing demand for innovative solutions to optimize high-pressure turbine blade cooling. However, the traditional methods for achieving this optimization are known for their complexity and time-consuming nature. We present an automation framework to streamline the design, meshing, and structural analysis of cooling channels, achieving design automation at both the morphological and topological levels. This framework offers a comprehensive approach for evaluating turbine blade lifetime and enabling multidisciplinary design analyses, emphasizing flexibility in turbine cooling design through high-level CAD templates and knowledge-based engineering. The streamlined automation process, supported by a knowledge base, ensures continuity in both the mesh and structural simulation automations, contributing significantly to advancements in gas turbine technology