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Resource conservation through a hierarchical approach of mass and energy integration

The objective of this work was to develop a systematic methodology for
simultaneously targeting and optimizing heating, cooling, power cogeneration, and
waste management for any processing facility. A systems approach was used to
characterize the complex interactions between the various forms of material and energy
utilities as well as their interactions with the core processing units. Two approaches were
developed: graphical and mathematical. In both approaches, a hierarchical procedure
was developed to decompose the problem into successive stages that were globally
solvable then. The solution fragments were then merged into overall process solutions
and targets. The whole approach was a systems approach of solving problems. The
methodology was developed from the insights from several state of the art process
integration techniques. In particular, the dissertation introduced a consistent framework
for simultaneously addressing heat-exchange networks, material-recovery networks,
combined heat and power, fuel optimization, and waste management. The graphical
approach relied on decomposing the problem into sequential tasks that could be addressed using visualization tools. The mathematical approach enabled the
simultaneous solution of critical subproblems. Because of the non-convexity of the
mathematical formulation, a global optimization technique was developed through
problem reformulation and discretization. A case study was solved and analyzed to
illustrate the effectiveness of the devised methodology.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/3119
Date12 April 2006
CreatorsMahmud, Rubayat
ContributorsEl-Halwagi, Mahmoud M.
PublisherTexas A&M University
Source SetsTexas A and M University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeBook, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text
Format766513 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital

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