Optimization of carbonization conditions for needle coke production from a low-sulphur petroleum vacuum residue

The optimum carbonization conditions for converting a low-sulphur petroleum vacuum residue in a tube bomb in terms of pressure and temperature into better needle coke of low CTE, with less production of poor bottom coke, were studied by observation of the resultant cokes and sequential analyses of carbonization intermediates by means of solvent fractionation and gas evolution. Carbonization at 460°C under 15 kg cm^–2 G produced the best needle coke. The quality of the resultant needle coke was strongly influenced by viscosity changes of the system, the solidification range and gas evolution in the carbonization progress. The first two characteristics reflect the rates of condensation (such as QI formation) and devolatilization of soluble fractions, strongly influencing the growth of anisotropic units. The last characteristic reflects the pyrolytic cracking reaction to define the timing of gas evolution during carbonization, influencing the axial orientation of anisotropic texture as well as the porosity in the resultant coke. Both profiles varied very much, depending on the carbonization temperature. Finally, the formation of a bottom coke of fine mosaic texture is discussed from the viewpoint of the co-carbonization concept.     

Diagnostics and prognostics for complex systems: A review of methods and challenges

Diagnostics and prognostics have a significant role in the reliability enhancement of systems and are focused topics of active research. Engineered systems are becoming more complex and are subjected to miscellaneous failure modes that impact adversely their performability. This ever-increasing complexity makes fault diagnostics and prognostics challenging for the system-level functions. A significant number of successes have been achieved and acknowledged in some review papers; however, these reviews rarely focused on application to complex engineered systems nor provided a systematic review of diverse techniques and approaches to address the related challenges. To bridge the gap, this paper first presents a review to systematically cover the general concepts and recent development of various diagnostics and prognostics approaches, along with their strengths and shortcomings for the application of diverse engineered systems. Afterwards, given the characteristics of complex systems, the applicability of different techniques and methods that are capable to address the features of complex systems are reviewed and discussed, and some of the recent achievements in the literature are introduced. Finally, the unaddressed challenges are discussed by taking into account the characteristics of automotive systems as an example of complex systems. In addition, future development and potential research trends are offered to address those challenges. Consequently, this review provides a systematic view of the state-of-the-art and case studies with a reference value for scholars and practitioners.     

Industrial hydrogen production technology and development status in China: a review

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - This paper reviews the status of the research on industrial hydrogen production technology and development in China. The pros and cons of different...     

Periodical capacity setting methods for make-to-order multi-machine production systems

The paper presents different periodical capacity setting methods for make-to-order, multi-machine production systems with stochastic customer required lead times and stochastic processing times to improve service level and tardiness. These methods are developed as decision support when capacity flexibility exists, such as, a certain range of possible working hours a week for example. The methods differ in the amount of information used whereby all are based on the cumulated capacity demand at each machine. In a simulation study the methods’ impact on service level and tardiness is compared to a constant provided capacity for a single and a multi-machine setting. It is shown that the tested capacity setting methods can lead to an increase in service level and a decrease in average tardiness in comparison to a constant provided capacity. The methods using information on processing time and customer required lead time distribution perform best. The results found in this paper can help practitioners to make efficient use of their flexible capacity.     

Optimization of multistage production systems with variable production times and costs

Introducing a concept of ‘ production speed ’ as a decision variable, a production model with variable (speed-dependent) production time and cost for producing a product item was constructed. Optimization analysis was mode on a single-item, multistage production system in an attempt to determine the optimal production speeds for all stages and the optimal cycle time. For a case of multiple-item production, an optimal job sequence and the optimal production speeds for all jobs were analysed, such that the total flow time was minimized as a primary objective and, in addition, the total production cost was minimized as a secondary objective.     

Models for automated storage and retrieval systems: a literature review

Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) are warehousing systems that use mechanised devices to accomplish the repetitive tasks of storing and retrieving parts in racks. Since these systems represent a significant investment and considerable operating costs, their use must be as efficient as possible. AS/RS performance is the result of the interaction of many complex and stochastic subsystems. This reality creates a need for robust and efficient evaluation models. This article complements previous surveys on AS/RS by focusing on the particular research question addressed by each work and the associated assumptions used for the various models designed for evaluating AS/RS. Dynamic models based on simulation dominate the most recent literature; however, static approaches based on travel-time modelling have strongly contributed to the study of AS/RS. This review includes dynamic – simulation-based – models, but considers also steady-state (travel-time-based) models. We believe that this review may be of great help to researchers and industrial users in their search for the best modelling approach for a specific problem.     

Dismutation: a new development reaction for photographic systems

Dismutation of a low-valency metal compound into a compound of higher valency and the metal can serve as a development reaction to amplify the effect of light on a wide range of photosensitive materials. Developable photographic systems based on dismutation have been devised for cuprous oxide, the monohalides of indium, mercurous halides and ’bismuth subchloride”.     

Modelling architectures: A review of their application in structured methods for information systems specification

This paper investigates and presents views on how enterprise modelling architectures can be deployed within various stages of structured methodologies for information systems specification. The high level role of the CIMOSA and ARIS modelling architectures within the SSADM methodology for capturing the specification process is first discussed. This is to highlight the flexibility and potential applicability of these architectures in complementary roles within structured methodologies. The constructs of the CIMOSA modelling architecture are subsequently used to show the features which support the development of information system specifications for applications in manufacturing enterprises.     

Mixed-integer linear methods for layout-optimization of screening systems in recovered paper production

The industrial treatment of waste paper in order to regain valuable fibers from which recovered paper can be produced, involves several steps of preparation. One important step is the separation of stickies that are normally attached to the paper. If not properly separated, remaining stickies reduce the quality of the recovered paper or even disrupt the production process. For the mechanical separation process of fibers from stickies a separator screen is used. This machine has one input feed and two output streams, called the accept and the reject. In the accept the fibers are concentrated, whereas the reject has a higher concentration of stickies. The machine can be controlled by setting its reject rate. But even when the reject rate is set properly, after just a single screening step, the accept still has too many stickies, or the reject too many fibers. To get a better separation, several separators have to be assembled into a network. From a mathematical point of view this problem can be seen as a multi-commodity network flow design problem with a nonlinear, controllable distribution function at each node. We present a nonlinear mixed-integer programming model for the simultaneous selection of the network’s topology and the optimal setting of each separator. Numerical results are obtained via different types of linearization of the nonlinearities and the use of mixed-integer linear solvers, and compared with state-of-the-art global optimization software.     

二元机翼非线性颤振系统的若干分析方法

颤振是气动弹性力学研究最重要的问题之一。本文综述了亚音速条件下二元机翼非线性颤振研究的若干分析方法。目前,基于二元机翼的非线性颤振分析采用的定性方法主要是常微分方程定性理论,定量方法则有等效线性化法、描述函数法、谐波平衡法以及摄动法等。对所提及的方法做了简要的评述和比较,指出了进一步研究的问题。     

Optimization methods for advanced design of aircraft panels: a comparison

Advanced nonlinear analyses developed for estimating structural responses for recent applications for the aerospace industry lead to expensive computational times. However optimization procedures are necessary to quickly provide optimal designs. Several possible optimization methods are available in the literature, based on either local or global approximations, which may or may not include sensitivities (gradient computations), and which may or may not be able to resort to parallelism facilities. In this paper Sequential Convex Programming (SCP), Derivative Free Optimization techniques (DFO), Surrogate Based Optimization (SBO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) approaches are compared in the design of stiffened aircraft panels with respect to local and global instabilities (buckling and collapse). The computations are carried out with software developed for the European aeronautical industry. The specificities of each optimization method, the results obtained, computational time considerations and their adequacy to the studied problems are discussed.     

A review of experimental methods for solid solubility determination in cryogenic systems

Over the past years, there have been a number of serious explosions in air industry, which have resulted in workers injuries and fatalities. At the same time, there has been an increase in the use of air separation products for industrial activities.The quality of air entering an air separation plant is of crucial importance for its safe and reliable operation and the interest in the solubility data of solids in cryogenic liquid solvents is closely connected to the problem of impurities accumulation in the process plant and storage tanks. Such accumulations, especially in liquid oxygen, may cause fouling and blockage in heat exchangers and pipelines and they may eventually cause serious explosions. For this reason the air contaminants composition in liquid oxygen must be determined with great precision.This paper aims at reviewing experimental methods for determining the solubility of solid compounds that may be present in the cryogenic liquefaction processing of air distillation. A review of the literature data on solubility of solids in liquid oxygen and nitrogen is included as well.Emphasis is given to the difficulties in setting-up measuring apparatuses working at extreme conditions, i.e. low compositions and low temperatures.     

Gastroretentive delivery systems: a mini review

Various attempts have been made to develop gastroretentive delivery systems. For example, floating, swelling, mucoadhesive, and high-density systems have been developed to increase gastric retention time of the dosage forms. It is known that differences in gastric physiology, such as, gastric pH, and motility exhibit both intra-as well as inter-subject variability demonstrating significant impact on gastric retention time and drug delivery behavior. Nevertheless, some floating devices have shown promising results. In this paper, the gastric physiology and the reported intragastric delivery systems have briefly been presented.     

Hybrid make-to-stock and make-to-order systems: a taxonomic review

Production planning and control (PPC) systems that employ aspects from both make-to-order (MTO) and make-to-stock (MTS) production control are known as hybrid MTS/MTO systems. While both MTO and MTS separately have been studied extensively, their combined use has received less attention. However, the literature on this topic is growing and this paper shows that the review performed in this paper is an important addition to the field. We categorise relevant literature according to a novel taxonomy and show that hybrid MTS/MTO production control can be used in different contexts. In addition, an overview of the modelling techniques and methods used in these papers is provided. Based on the reviewed literature, relevant research questions and directions for future research are identified. Finally, it is shown that hybrid MTS/MTO production control is prevalent in practice by discussing research with industrial applications. The paper contains an overview of research on hybrid MTS/MTO production control to be used as reference for researchers active in the field, and provides managerial insights and directions for future research on this topic.     

Transient pressure solution for a horizontal well in a petroleum reservoir by boundary integral methods

A novel application of the boundary integral method to horizontal well analysis in the field of petroleum engineering is presented. The transient pressure satisfies the heat equation, non‐local and non‐linear boundary conditions. The turbulent flow inside the well is modelled by considering a pressure gradient along the well. The heat potential is used and Chebyshev collocation along with a time discretization is employed. Some numerical results are presented to show the features of this new approach. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

AMANDE: a new facility for monoenergetic neutron fields production between 2 keV and 20 MeV

The variation of the response of the instruments with the neutron energy has to be determined in well-characterized monoenergetic neutron fields. The AMANDE facility will deliver such neutron fields between 2 keV and 20 MeV in an experimental hall designed with metallic walls for neutron scattering minimisation. The neutrons will be produced by nuclear interaction of accelerated protons or deuterons on thin targets of selected materials. The measuring devices to be characterised will be accurately placed with a fully automated detector transport system. The energy of the neutron field will be validated by time-of-flight experiments and a large set of standard detectors and fluence monitors will be used to determine the neutron fluence references. The scattered neutron fluence and dose equivalent were calculated by the MCNP Monte Carlo code at several measuring points in order to determine their contribution to the neutron field.     

Operational strategies for seru production system: a bi-objective optimisation model and solution methods

In recent years, the interest in seru production system (SPS) has increased to enhance the flexibility of production systems. Because the worker resource in an SPS is critical for adapting to changes in demand, this study focuses on workforce-related operational strategies rarely considered for SPS. To this end, for the first time in the literature, a bi-objective workforce scheduling problem is addressed by considering the interseru worker transfer in SPS. A novel optimisation model is proposed to achieve two objectives, that of minimising makespan and reducing workload imbalance among workers. Because it is proved that the problem falls within a non-deterministic polynomial-time hardness (NP-hard) class, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) is employed to solve large-sized problems. For small-sized problems, the second version of the augmented ε-constrained (AUGMECON2) method is implemented and Pareto-optimal solutions are obtained. A set of evaluation metrics is considered to compare two different operational strategies in terms of the desired objectives. The computational results indicate that allowing worker transfer leads to better results for all metrics. The main contribution of the present study is to provide a novel optimisation model for the addressed problem to compare two operational strategies by considering the heterogeneity inherent of workers.     

Conservation laws and prediction methods for stress concentration fields

Starting with the Eshelby-type conservation law, path-independent line and surface integrals that allow the comparison of averaged strain-energy densities in the notch area for linear elastic and non-linear elastic material behaviors are derived. The analysis shows that a point (two-dimensional problems) and a curve (three-dimensional problems) exist on the notch boundary, where the values of the strain-energy densities are almost the same. The conditions are discussed, for which the equality of the strain energies is guaranteed. The theoretical results are illustrated by two finite-element examples.