A new toolbox to optimize nonlinear

objective functions by solving

combinatorial problems in industrial
applications
A. Bassi, M. Venturin
www.openeering.com
May 16th , 2014
 A NEW TOOLBOX:
Scilab Heat Engine Design Optimizer

A. Bassi, M. Venturin
www.openeering.com
May 16th , 2014
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 Tutorials and applications
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Scilab Black Belt Course

www.openeering.com

14/05/2014 5
Around 1600 registered users from more than 100 countries

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HEAT ENGINES EFFICIENCIES
Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER)

Required work =
Required Power * time

HOT
CHILLER
COOLED ENVIRONMENT
QL QH
SPACE
(Desired effect )

𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 |𝑄𝐿|

𝐸𝐸𝑅 = η = =
𝑅𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑊

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Coefficient Of Performance (COP)

Required work =
Required Power * time

COLD HEAT
ENVIRONMENT HEATED
PUMP
QL QH SPACE
(Desired effect)

𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 |𝑄𝐻|

𝐶𝑂𝑃 = η = =
𝑅𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑊

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 Efficiency depends on power!

𝜂 = 𝜂(𝑃)

Pf [kW] 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000
EER 1.466667 1.825 2.16 2.471667 2.76 3.025 3.266667 3.485 3.68 3.851667 4 4.125 4.226667 4.305 4.36 4.391667 4.4 4.385 4.346667 4.285 4.2

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Goal: maximize the efficiency in parallel configurations

W1
QL1 CHILLER QH1
1

W2
QL2 QH2
CHILLER HOT
COOLED 2 ENVIRONMENT
SPACE

W3
QH3
QL3 CHILLER
3

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The mathematical problem

𝑃𝑟 = required power

We maximize the
efficiency of the overall
system:

max 𝜂𝑡𝑜𝑡 (P1 , P2 , P3 )

Subject to:

𝑃1 + 𝑃2 + 𝑃3 = 𝑃𝑟

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Solution strategy

 Approximate efficiencies with

0 10 20 30 40 50 piecewise linearized curves

 Given a required power (𝑃𝑟 ), analyze

all possible combinations that satisfy
0 10 20 30 40 50 the requirement

 Find the optimal solutions and rank

the suboptimal ones
0 10 20 30 40 50

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THE SHEDO TOOLBOX:
SCILAB HEAT ENGINE DESIGN OPTIMIZER
The toolbox

ScilabTec 2014 - Copyright © 2014 EnginSoft SpA, all rights reserved

1. Settings

 It allows to set the paths and the files to be used during the analysis
 The default settings are loaded from the previous run
ScilabTec 2014 - Copyright © 2014 EnginSoft SpA, all rights reserved
2. Pre-processing

 In this phase the user can choose the  Adding new heat engines
.csv file containing the powers and configurations is very easy!
efficiencies of the heat engines
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2. Pre-processing

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3. Analysis

 Single analysis: fixed power requirement

 Full analysis: solutions for all the powers between Pt_min and Pt_max with
step Delta Pt
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3. Analysis

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3. Analysis

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4. Post-processing

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SHEDO main technical features

 Scilab 5.5 and JIMS module

JIMS module (Java Interaction Mechanism in Scilab) allows Scilab to instantiate
Java objects.

 .csv files as input and output arguments

SHEDO is a user-friendly program!

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Conclusions

 Automated search of the optimal

solution
AFTER
 Scalability of the problem in many
different plant and machinery
+15%

 Time to search for a solution reduced

to a few seconds of computation BEFORE

 Average energy saving of 15%

compared to the manual solution with
significant cost savings

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION