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Quantifying Sustainability in System Design

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 26th Annual INCOSE International Symposium (IS 2016)
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, July 18-21, 2016

Quantifying Sustainability in System Design

Ronald S. Carson, PhD, ESEP

Seattle Pacific University
rd
3307 3 Ave West, Seattle, WA 98119 USA
ronald.s.carson@gmail.com
Copyright © 2015-2016 by Ronald S. Carson. Published and used by INCOSE with permission.

Abstract. A standard definition of sustainability as development that “meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
requires the ability to identify and quantify needs as well as quantify a compromised ability of
future generations to meet their needs. In a new Engineering course in the “Appropriate and
Sustainable Engineering” program, Seattle Pacific University is addressing how to analyze
systems during the design activity to address such sustainability issues. These include the use
of exergy and resource depletion as measurable effects of systems, the consideration of
life-cycle phases of development, manufacturing, testing, operations, and disposal,
decision-making considering sustainability trade-off criteria, and managing life-cycle and
design resources. Specific system design and analysis techniques are also included, such as
considerations for human-systems integration, safety and reliability in all life-cycle phases.
Being able to quantify the sustainability measures yields an ability to quantitatively
differentiate among competing alternative system designs based on specific life-cycle
considerations and quantified sustainability impacts.

Introduction
“Systems Design”. To experienced systems engineers such a college course title would evoke
expectations regarding requirements, architecture, and interface definition as part of a complex
system design activity. Placed within a context of “Appropriate and Sustainability
Engineering” courses, such a course title evokes an old definition of “systems engineering”
(IEEE1220 1998, 11):
An interdisciplinary collaborative approach to derive, evolve, and verify a life-cycle
balanced system solution which satisfies customer expectations and meets public
acceptability.
Such a definition properly addresses key tenets of modern system design:
1. Interdisciplinary engineering and collaboration – the need for multiple engineering
specialists to collaborate in the whole design: electrical engineering, mechanical
engineering, software engineering, maintenance engineering, etc.
2. Life-cycle balanced solution – considering not just operations (system in use), but the
effects of design choices during development (design and testing), manufacturing or
product build, sustainment (to maintain the system), and disposal, where the system or
its elements are eventually recycled or otherwise eliminated.
3. Satisfies customer expectations – the marketplace generally addresses this
adequately. A challenge is to anticipate at the beginning of the product life cycle what
will satisfy customers when the product is eventually available, again considering all
life cycle phases. For example, many smartphones or music players do not have
 user-replaceable batteries. The implicit expectation is that the phone will be replaced
as obsolete prior to the battery wearing out. However, this leads to an emphasis on
disposal vs. refresh.
4. Meets public acceptability. “Public” is often the forgotten stakeholder, having little to
no direct input into system design or system impacts throughout the life cycle. Yet, the
“public” is generally affected by most engineered systems even if not a direct user
because of system effects on resource utilization and waste or undesirable operational
outputs (e.g., electromagnetic radiation from Wi-Fi).
A new upper division, undergraduate engineering course at Seattle Pacific University has this
course description (Carson 2015):
Systems Design: Provides an analysis and design of engineered systems as they relate
to their appropriate application and environmental, economic, and societal
sustainability. Students will use a systematic approach, including life cycle assessment,
and explore impacts on society, including public policy.
This description places emphasis on system life cycle assessment and impacts in the context
beyond the typical acquisition stakeholders (e.g., user, acquirer, supplier (ISO 15288:2015)).
Placement as the last of a series of “Appropriate and Sustainable Engineering” (ASE) courses
leads to additional stakeholder expectations to address the meaning and application of
“appropriate and sustainable” engineering. For context, the first three courses address
“Alternative Energy Systems” (ASE1), “Hydro Systems” (ASE2) and “Biomass” (ASE3). Part
of the intent of “Systems Design” (ASE4) is to provide more formal methods for designing and
analyzing appropriate and sustainable systems.
This paper addresses the implementation of quantifying sustainability in a new system design
course and some associated lessons learned. We examine some specific measures for
sustainability and appropriateness, map the course description to course topics and describe the
whole course.

What is Sustainability?
“Sustainable development” was defined by the United Nations (Brundtland 1987) as follows:
Sustainable development seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without
compromising the ability to meet those of the future.
From a systems engineering life cycle perspective, this suggests that a sustainable system
should require inputs or provide outputs to or from our system that do not affect a future ability
to provide similar outputs or use similar inputs. This also leads to suggested measures for
resource utilization and waste production (next section).
As seen in Figure 1, all systems use Inputs from Sources and deliver Outputs to Sinks
(consumers of outputs). The concerns for sustainability include:
 Does the System use of Inputs diminish the Sources such that other Systems no longer
have similar access to these Inputs, whether by absolute amount or because cost
increases diminish the economic supply?
 Does the System production of intended and unintended (waste) outputs compromise:
o Other resource (Input) streams (e.g., pollution), or
 o Other Outputs from other Systems (e.g., electromagnetic interference, acoustic
noise), or
o The sink itself (another resource)?

Figure 1. System context with sources of inputs and sinks for outputs.
Source: Carson 2015.
Even if some of the Sources are essentially infinite (e.g., continuous flow systems like solar
power), there will always be material resource limitations (what is required for making the
solar conversion equipment). And no Sinks are truly infinite, as we have learned in the last
century regarding air, water, and land dumps. We seek in our system designs to deliver the
needed outputs without compromising other systems or stakeholders. So, designing and
analyzing System Inputs and Outputs to ensure Sustainability is a necessary consideration to
avoid impacting those in the future.
This definition is also open to considering not just future generations (a long time horizon), but
immediate or “instantaneous sustainability” effects. For example, the use of a continuously
replenished resource (e.g., solar power, wind power, water power) can still impact others in the
present who may wish to take advantage of the same resource. This can occur because of solar
power shadowing or excessive collection density (wind power, water power, wave power),
where the act of collection reduces the local power density available for other users.
Economic allocations of resources by price lead to similar “instantaneous sustainability”
concerns when a resource becomes limited in the near term because of price, even if long-term
availability is not an issue. For example, natural disasters such as hurricanes and ice storms
typically lead to immediate, local shortages of critical supplies (food, water, hotel rooms). As
prices for petroleum products change over time, the resource (petrol or gasoline) becomes
more or less available to those with smaller budgets. The reality is that the consumption by all
others affects the instantaneous availability of the petrol for any individual. Larger supplies
depress prices; higher demand increases prices. And controlled prices lead to shortages (price
caps below market) or oversupply (price floor above market).

What is Appropriate?
A definition of “appropriate technology” is given in the dictionary (Merriam-Webster 2015):
Technology that is suitable to the social and economic conditions of the geographic
area in which it is to be applied, is environmentally sound, and promotes
self-sufficiency on the part of those using it.
This addresses the local conditions related to people, geography, economics, and the
environment. Some of these, e.g., geography, can be recast economically. For example, as an
appropriate geographic consideration, it makes little sense to install wind power or solar power
systems in areas that have little wind or sun. This would also be apparent as inappropriate from
an economic perspective as well. Likewise, appropriate consideration of environmental effects
can be recast economically as a cost of remediation. An example of the technology disruption
from a social perspective is the introduction of a single, empty Coca-Cola bottle into a
Botswana tribe in the Kalahari Desert (Uys 1980). The single bottle has many beneficial uses,
but ends up disrupting the social fabric of the society, in part because of its singular nature.
A definition of “appropriate design” is similar (Felser 2011):
An appropriate design is uniquely (and in all facets) meant for a group of people who
are underserved or have diminished autonomy in some aspect of their life, particularly
economically.
Without debating fuzzy concepts of “underserved” or “diminished autonomy” we can adopt the
key concept that an appropriate system design must be matched to the capabilities of the
intended user in terms of skill, knowledge, and local resources for purchase, maintenance, and
operations of the system.
For example, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” (Kamkwamba and Mealer 2009) created a
windmill-powered electrical system for his Malawi village using locally available materials
and his self-taught expertise. By using his own expertise and local materials, this system was
more “appropriate” than a system that relied on outside experts or more sophisticated but
non-local materials. Indeed, William Kamkwamba performed the design, build, installation,
maintenance, and system upgrades and enhancements, largely by himself.
However, we found in our analysis that the system was not “sustainable” when applicable
measures of sustainability are applied.

Quantifying Sustainability
Why should we quantify sustainability? While it may not be absolutely true that “if you can’t
measure it you can’t manage it” (Hunter 2015), the ability to apply measures to a noun or
concept like “sustainability” encourages or forces more specificity regarding what we mean.
Given the definition of “sustainability” above, how do we know if and when we have
compromised a future ability to satisfy some need or aspiration compared with the present
condition? Attempting to measure a concept like sustainability encourages further discussion
about the meaning of the term, as this paper attempts to show. “Quantifying sustainability” is
then the first step in being able to measure it and use the results.
Closed-loop control theory requires measurement as a basis for making decisions about
altering a process (Blanchard and Fabrycky 2006, 327). For evaluating “sustainability” we
need measures thereof for evaluating different systems as to their degrees of sustainability and
answering such questions as, “By how much might a need be compromised?”, or, “Is one
solution better than another?” when making decisions.
Simply asserting that a system or approach is sustainable begs the question without providing
any insight as to why someone makes the assertion. Measurement of sustainability can then be
a basis for rational discussion about different approaches by looking at the measurable effects
of systems as to their “sustainability” rather than looking solely at whether a system conforms
to a pattern that has been decreed (by someone) to be inherently “sustainable”.
How do we measure sustainability? Using the definition above, we should be measuring
system effects on the inputs in terms of diminishing resources and on outputs in terms of
contextual impacts, because diminishing the resources directly affects a future ability to use the
same resource to meet “needs and aspirations”. Whether the diminishment “compromises” this
ability may depend on crossing some threshold of resource availability.
Resources effects are well-quantified using “depletion time” (Lems et al. 2002):

where  is the depletion time, Mreserve is the initial resource quantity (measured in mass units),
consumption is the consumption rate (mass/time), and regeneration is the regeneration or recycling
rate (mass/time).
In this expression all variables are time-dependent. The quantity of a reserve can vary based on
market price and technology. For example, the new technology of hydraulic fracturing,
coupled with higher petroleum prices has increased the reserves of petroleum in the United
States (EIA 2013), even though the actual amount of oil in the ground is reduced because of
extraction. Consumption and regeneration rates are also time-dependent, yielding
time-dependent depletion times.
Also, this expression is only valid when the regeneration rate is less than or equal to the
consumption rate ( must be  0). If the regeneration rate exceeds the consumption rate then the
instantaneous reserve quantity is increasing as more “stuff” is produced than consumed. This
can happen, for example, if what were previously considered as dumps (no regeneration) are
mined for desired materials, adding to the available supply, Mreserve.
When there are multiple input streams, the system depletion time is given by the minimum
depletion time of all inputs (system = min(n), for all inputs, n). This means that, for example, for
continuous flow systems (e.g., solar power, wind power), the system depletion time is given by
the finite material resource depletion times, not the infinite wind or solar depletion time. This
has significant implications for the technology associated with renewable energy sources in
particular, which rely on rare earth metals and other relatively scarce resources to achieve their
higher conversion efficiencies as a means to improve their economics (Ramirez 2013).
If the strict definition of sustainability is applied, then “not compromising” the future resources
requires that the depletion time is not diminished with respect to some initial value, initial. This
can be guaranteed for a finite resource if we can match consumption and regeneration rates.
Alternatively, we can have an infinite supply of something (Mreserve(t) ). Both cases yield
 = . Again, as extraction technology improves or resource prices increase, a constant,
non-infinite depletion time is possible, even with increasing consumption rates so long as
Mreserve(t) increases as fast as consumption(t). Increasing regeneration rates can increase (t).
For “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” (Kamkwamba and Mealer 2009), the system is not
sustainable because the bulk of the materials used in his design were scavenged from existing
infrastructure and landfills. Any attempt to replicate his system would immediately run into
materials and expertise shortages. The design concept would then need to shift from an
“appropriate” solution based on largely free, local materials to a less appropriate solution based
on purchased materials. In addition, the system cannot be easily replicated because it relies on
the expertise of its designer/builder/maintainer, William Kamkwamba, who is not easily
replicated in his knowledge and expertise.
What about outputs? Undesirable outputs and effects of a system on its environment can be
addressed by considering the “sink” as a resource that is consumed by system operations. This
applies to water resources due to thermal or chemical pollution, atmospheric pollution, or
filling land-fills. In this case the “reserve” is the carrying capacity of the sink (mass or energy
that can be dumped without a negative effect), the consumption rate is how quickly that is used
up by an undesirable output, and a non-zero regeneration rate requires some mitigation to
sequester or alter the undesirable outputs, restoring the carrying capacity of the sink. Among
these, the reserve carrying capacity would be the most contentious, as the continuing global
warming / climate change debate indicates. We are simply not sure how much carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse gases the atmosphere can tolerate without negatively affecting future
generations, especially given earth’s history of higher CO2 concentrations in the past (UCSD
2013). This motivates considering CO2 sequestration to reduce the consumption rate of the
atmospheric carbon sink (EPA 2015).
Quantifying Sustainability using “Exergy”. From a total life cycle perspective it is useful to
introduce the thermodynamic quantity, exergy (also called, “available” or “useful work”), to
measure the effects of system behavior. Exergy, X, measures the useful work available from
any energy source. In contrast to energy, exergy can be destroyed, and is therefore a
complement to entropy with the formal definition Xdestroyed = T0 Sgenerated, where T0 is the
absolute temperature of the reference environment, and Sgenerated is the entropy generated. Key
to this definition is that exergy is measured with respect to some reference environment.
For example, the exergy of 45 MW of electrical power is Xout=45MW, since the available work
from electricity is 100% of the power or energy input (Ein). However, if we have Qin = 45 MW
of heat at a specified temperature (say, TH = 473K) and a reference environment of TL = 283K
(10C), then the exergy (available work) is given by a reversible heat engine using these
temperatures, with Xout = Qin, where  is the efficiency of a reversible (Carnot) heat engine, 
= 1 – TL/TH= 0.40, and Xout = 18 MW. The smaller number is because the work available from
heat is much less than the work available from electricity (100%), even though no exergy is
being destroyed (consistent with a reversible heat engine). Of critical importance is that, if the
requirement is for 45MW of mechanical or electrical power, then a heat engine using these
temperatures would require Qin = Xout /  = 113 MW of heat input. This is a much larger input
resource requirement, and, in part, motivates the use of electricity generation from purely
mechanical means (hydro power, wind power) where there is no waste heat and the potential
for no exergy destroyed when all processes are reversible.
Exergy of materials. Exergy can also be used to quantify material resources by considering
the amount of work (exergy) required to produce a material in a particular chemical state and
concentration compared with the reference environment (Lems et al. 2002). Resource mines
are useful economically because they have higher concentrations of resources in a desirable
chemical state in comparison to the reference environment. The fact that aluminum is the most
abundant metal in the earth’s crust (about 8% (Jefferson 2015)) does not mean that we can
economically mine it anywhere. Rather, we look for concentrations of aluminum in a chemical
state that can be economically processed to yield metallic aluminum. However, this means that
we must add exergy (do work) on the mine (to extract the desired compounds) and then on the
bound aluminum state (to extract the aluminum metal). In combination with higher
concentrations of, for example, bauxite, we also need an economic process to reduce the
aluminum to its metallic state. Exergy provides a quantitative means to measure these
processes, and is used in chemical and materials engineering to analyze resources and
processes for various materials such as aluminum (Soeno 2003), water desalination (Kahraman
and Cengel 2005), and uranium (Tani et al. 2010).
In addition to the resource depletion time of the sink, the exergy cost of abatement of outputs
can also be calculated as a means to address the total life cycle (Lems et al. 2004). In this
approach, the exergy cost of abating the impacts of the life cycle processes is included in the
overall exergy analysis as a means to make more optimal decisions regarding resource usage.
For example, the exergy cost of restoring land to pre-mined contours and surface conditions
reduces the impact of mining tailings piles and surface mines on future generations. For
combustion and similar processes, total exergy abatement is not generally economical because
the exergy cost of the abatement will exceed the exergy benefit of the combustion. However, in
a combined system, e.g., hydrogen fuel cycle, the abatement may be a reasonable trade for the
conversion of the exergy into a useful form, e.g., liquid fuels for transportation.
Another view. An earlier definition of sustainability speaks to similar concerns but introduces
specific success criteria for “sustainability” (Asheim 1994):
Sustainability is defined as a requirement of our generation to manage the resource base
such that the average quality of life that we ensure ourselves can potentially be shared
by all future generations. ... Development is sustainable if it involves a non-decreasing
average quality of life… Our generation's management of the resource base is
sustainable if it constitutes the first part of a feasible sustainable
development…Sustainability is about intergenerational distribution. So, public policy
aimed at sustainable development should strengthen the mechanisms for redistribution
from the present to the future.
As stated here, the focus is not simply on equivalent access to resources, but “mechanisms for
redistribution from the present to the future” as an aid to a “non-decreasing average quality of
life”. The latter can be easily realized with no development but also yields no improvement in
health care or life expectancy. Without getting into the politics of redistribution, other
measures of “average quality of life” might be life-expectancy or infant mortality. An analysis
of a system would need to identify and gain consensus from appropriate stakeholders on these
“quality of life” measures, and then analyze systems for such intergenerational impacts on
“average quality of life”. We have not attempted this in our course.

Quantifying Appropriateness
“Appropriate” is more difficult to quantify compared with “sustainable”. This is because we
must understand the capabilities of individuals, groups, and local or national infrastructure
with respect to specific technologies. For example, it may be least expensive in terms of
installation to forego a wire-based telephone system in favor of a modern cellular system to
achieve a telephone system. However, if no one in a region is capable of performing the
installation, maintaining the wireless system, or servicing mobile-phone users, then it is
difficult to argue that this is an “appropriate” solution at the time of deployment; the situation
may change as the people become more technologically sophisticated.
A measure of “appropriateness” could be an ordinal quantitative scale (e.g., 1 to 5, similar to
risk likelihood and consequence), where the highest value indicates an exceptional match of
the system to the local capabilities, and 1 represents an inappropriate application to the local
capabilities. Apart from such an ordinal scale it is difficult to conceive of a means to quantify
appropriateness. As mentioned above, such a measure, like risk, should be evaluated over time
to determine whether it is changing. Plans could be implemented to improve the degree of
appropriateness over time, e.g., improving knowledge and skills through training.
In developing training systems we consider the prerequisite skills to enter into training and
what the personnel capabilities must be for a graduate of the training activity with respect to the
system to be operated and maintained. “Appropriate” in this context means that (1) enough
candidate personnel have the prerequisites so that it is reasonable to expect adequately
prepared students, and (2) the required knowledge and skills upon completion with a
sufficiently high success rate can be accomplished with reasonable expenditure of training
resources (time, facilities). Such training curricula generally acknowledge that some students
with exceptional backgrounds (e.g., specific, applicable experience) can overcome deficiencies
of specific knowledge and be successful. So some criteria for entry into such programs can be
treated as general guidelines, while others may be firm prerequisites. Likewise, the effort
required to learn the material will depend on individual capabilities, leading to shorter or longer
durations in training for different individuals. Therefore, what is appropriate will be specific to
the time, place, local resources, and specifics of the technology, and its measure may be
improved through training or other means.
(Chan et al. 2000) have acknowledged the challenge of this kind of measure for generalized
technology selection by creating fuzzy sets to describe selection criteria. This enables some
overlap in the membership functions related to “degree of appropriateness” for the contributing
criteria, including local personnel skill and knowledge, cost relative to local economic
resources, geography, environment, and social disruption.

Teaching Sustainability in System Design

Having defined what we mean by “appropriate and sustainable” we now turn to the content of
the system design course. Key words in the course description became the set of requirements
for developing the detailed content.
 Analysis of engineered systems
 Design of engineered systems
 Appropriate application
 Environmental, economic, and societal sustainability
 Systematic approach
 Life cycle assessment
 Impacts on society, including public policy
From these topics, student prerequisites (upper division standing in Engineering), and our
analysis of sustainability we created a 10-week (academic quarter) course outline as depicted in
Table 1.
Table 1. Course outline and mapping to course description

Mapping to Course
Week / Topic Topics
Description

Introduction to basic systems

1. Introduction to engineering concepts, including
System Design Design of systems. boundaries and context. Introduce
sustainable and appropriate concepts.
Quantify resource depletion time.
 Mapping to Course
Week / Topic Topics
Description

2. Interactions of Review basic physics and

Engineering engineering so that students Describe coupled effects of design
Disciplines from different disciplines solutions on other disciplines.
are not lost.

3. Exergy Calculate exergy changes in systems

Quantify sustainability.
for energy and materials
4. Design for the Evaluate sustainability issues from
Life-cycle Life cycle assessment
concept through disposal

5. Multi-criteria Systematic design approach;

Decision trees, Kepner-Tregoe,
decision- making life-cycle impacts of Analytic Hierarchy Process
designs.
6. Managing Systematic design approach;
Design life-cycle impacts of Budgets, allocations, tolerances.
Resources designs.
7. Topology and System impacts on context.
boundaries Systematic design approach
Boundaries, zones, penetrations.

8. Design for safety Systematic design approach; Failure rate, consequences, severity
and reliability: understand impacts on
and criticality.
society.
9. Designing using Systematic design approach; Sources of standards and laws, effects
Laws and understand impacts on of diverse jurisdictions by life cycle
Standards public policy. phase.
10. Designing for Systematic design approach;
Humans: understand impacts on Anthropometrics, cognition and
Human-systems people. Appropriate decision-making, appropriateness.
integration application.

Source: Data Adapted from Carson 2015.

Design Project. In addition, there was a 7-week group (3 students/group) design project to
apply the techniques to student-selected design problems, e.g., wind-power systems, bio-fuels
generation. Lists of possible topics were provided. This addresses the “Design engineered
systems” course objective.
Textbooks. While numerous textbooks exist regarding thermodynamics (e.g., Cengel and
Boles 2015, among many others), exergy (Dincer and Rosen 2013), sustainable engineering
(Allen and Shonnard 2012) and systems engineering (e.g., Blanchard and Fabrycky 2006,
among many others), no single appropriate text was found for this course that addressed
systems design as well as sustainability per the course description. (Kamkwamba and Mealer
2009) was the only required book and was used as a case study for analysis. Numerous journal
and other articles were provided for reading and analysis. All lectures were posted in the
learning management system for student reading and review.
Other course operations. The class met twice weekly. Each topic included one or two lectures
with several examples and worked problems. Homework was assigned for each lecture, and
included quantitative problem solving and analysis based on the lecture and worked problems.
Quizzes concluded each topic and were given at the beginning of the next session. Exams were
given every 3-4 weeks to reinforce (or compel) learning, and were based on the homework and
quizzes. All problems (class examples, homework, quizzes, and tests) were worked and posted
after due dates.

Designing and Analysing Systems Using

Appropriate and Sustainable Measures
Designing systems using sustainability measures requires applying the systems engineering
processes (ISO 15288:2015) while addressing the appropriate and sustainable measures over
the total life cycle of the system. In particular, the analysis of alternatives via trade-off studies,
with measures of resource depletion times, exergy destruction, and system appropriateness, for
all life cycle phases, becomes the basis for selecting preferred system designs.
Understand the system boundary. Figure 1 identifies sources of inputs and sinks of outputs.
To appropriately apply our sustainability measures we need to examine the life cycles of the
various input and output streams by considering depletion times of all inputs and the sink,
exergy addition and destruction (irreversibility) in acquiring the inputs and in the system itself.
The challenge is that, while following all the inputs back to their natural source (the exergy of
each resource in its pre-mined state) we can complicate the design and analysis process (Figure
2).

Figure 2. Process flow for materials extracted from the earth and processed until “useful”.
Source: Carson 2015.
The exergy added to concentrate chemically useful compounds is free to humans (the first two
boxes) – this is the material as we find it in the ground or other source. Humans add (and
destroy) exergy in the subsequent extraction and processing into a useful product (last three
steps). “Tailings” (waste) are generated in each of these extraction and processing steps.
The exergy balance equation for this flow is given by
,
where XInOre is the exergy of the material prior to extraction, (WIn + QIn) is the exergy (work and
heat) added in extraction and processing, XOutMatl is the exergy of the desired output material,
and XOutTails is the exergy of the undesired tailings or waste of the process. XDestroyed is the
exergy destroyed, the unrecoverable exergy due to irreversibilities and material losses. A key
concept is that, as long as the exergy is not destroyed, initial states can be theoretically
recovered by reversible processes. Thus, tailings may have high exergy that is still useful for
some other process.
For example, if we examine the nuclear fuel life cycle for enriched uranium (Tani et al. 2010)
we can estimate the exergy of each stream in the process for 1 TWh of electricity (Table 2),
where “Exergy Output” is the resulting output for that particular stream and process step.
Table 2. Exergy balance analysis for a light water reactor.

Process Step (Uranium State) Exergy Output

(Uranium Ore) 1.56 x 106 TJ

Mining and Milling (U3O8) 1.482 x 106 TJ

Uranium Conversion (UF6) 1.475 x 106 TJ

Enriched Fuel (UF6) 0.147 x 106 TJ

Enrichment Tailings (UF6) 1.32 x 106 TJ

Fuel Fabrication (UO2) 0.146 x 106 TJ

Nuclear Reactor Electricity generation 3.6 x 103 TJ (1 TWh)

Waste disposal 0.13 x 106 TJ

Source: Data Adapted from Tani et al. 2010.

As (Tani et al. 2010) points out, this process yields a reactor efficiency of 2.4% (ratio of desired
output exergy to input exergy when converting enriched fuel into electricity). More
significantly, almost all of the input exergy from the uranium ore, processing, and enrichment
remains in the enrichment tailings, not in the enriched fuel. From a resource perspective, very
little of the available exergy from the uranium is used in the generation of electricity. This
result motivates their discussion of reactor fuel cycles that do not rely on enrichment (the
molten-salt reactor). This is the type of exergy analysis conducted in the course, examining
inputs, outputs, losses, and exergy destroyed from the whole life cycle of the system (resources
to waste).
The purchase and implementation costs of any resource have traditionally served as surrogates
for exergy, because higher prices reflect the scarcity of the source (how much exergy is
required to obtain it) and difficulty in processing (how much exergy must be added to make a
suitable input). However, these calculations don’t consistently include costs such as
remediation of mines or costs of disposal in the cost of the resource. Hence, exergy appears to
be a more complete life cycle measure of sustainability.
Examine the life cycle. Specifically, we need to pay more attention to these items for the
Implementation (manufacturing/fabrication) and Disposal phases in addition to Operations and
Maintenance (ISO 15288:2015, section 4). Such analyses as (Tani et al. 2010) described above
are an attempt to address these additional life cycle phases.
Instantaneous sustainability. Analyses of “instantaneous sustainability” should be performed
during the design phase to avoid problems during operations. For example, three different
“renewable” systems were examined in the course for electricity generation using water power,
wind power, and solar power.
For solar power, the instantaneous sustainability issue is shadowing, where one building
shadows another because of blockage in the line of sight (Figure 3), thus eliminating solar
power as a resource for the property owner so blocked. To avoid blockage, a city might set
building height (or height differential) limits as part of a zoning or building permit process.
For wind power (Figure 4), the act of extracting wind power diminishes the resource, making it
unavailable for other users within a certain radius. Therefore, there must be a separation
between wind towers in order to allow the atmosphere to regenerate the wind speed. Values of
from 7 to 15 rotor diameters are considered for wind farms to avoid diminishing the power that
can be extracted (Meyers and Meneveau 2012). The effect of higher spacing is to reduce the
input exergy/m2, effectively reducing the conversion efficiency (wind exergy/m2 to electricity).

Figure 3. Geometry for solar power Figure 4. Geometry for a wind farm with 7x
instantaneous sustainability analysis. (blue) and 15x (green) rotor diameter tower
Source: Carson 2015. spacing (referenced to red dot tower).
Source: Carson 2015.
For water power, the scarce resources are the
water (stream flow) and vertical drop, which
are the sources of energy to be converted.
Exergy generated by “undershot” water
wheels (where the wheel is embedded in the
stream) depend on stream velocity and
volume (kinetic energy). Overshot water
wheels (water is delivered in a flume to the top
of the water wheel, Figure 5) depend on water
volume and vertical drop (potential energy).
Once the vertical drop for the water mass is
“consumed”, the potential energy is lost until
regenerated in the stream flow. The act of
extracting power reduces the available exergy Figure 5. Schematic of an overshot water
for other downstream users. wheel. Source: Carson 2015.
 Lessons Learned from Student Evaluations
The 12-member class was composed of mechanical (ME) and general engineering majors with
“Appropriate and Sustainable” (ASE) emphasis. There were no electrical (EE) or software
(SWE) engineers. Nine of 12 students were seniors, so this elective course was taken during
their last quarter at the University.
Six of 12 students responded to the final course evaluations (3 Seniors and all 3 Juniors;
participation in the evaluations is voluntary). Students cited specific areas of operations, e.g.,
lectures, homework and quizzes, as helping their learning, especially given the lack of a
textbook. Several students noted that there was too much work for this 4-credit class, and this
was exacerbated by apparently excessively high expectations in the absence of pre-requisites.
Overall, the students were generally positive (average 4.2/5 rating) for the course in terms of
content and their learning. Topics that were cited as particularly beneficial included learning
about the system life cycle from conception through disposal, multi-criteria decision-making,
and topology and boundaries in system design. The overall positive course feedback has led to
offering the course annually.
Students cited the Design Project as “not as beneficial as [they] would have liked”, mainly
because of insufficient time to explore their projects in depth. For context, the design projects
were begun in week 3 and completed in week 10. Increasing the size of each design team from
3 to 4 students might enable a combination of greater depth and reduced work load.
Although there were no specific course prerequisites, the upper-division nature of the course
led to an expectation of completion of the basic thermodynamics course. This turned out to not
be true for all the Juniors, and some students were overwhelmed by the introduction of exergy
and thermodynamics.
Three changes have been implemented as a result of these observations and the feedback. The
first is that the order of the course outline was altered to review basic physics and
cross-disciplinary engineering earlier (“Interactions of Engineering Disciplines” in Table 1).
This will yield more time to address basic thermodynamics (first law regarding energy
conservation, second law regarding reversibility and efficiency). The second change is to focus
the exergy discussion less on the internal process details of calculating the exergy for a system
in a given state, and more on the aggregate system effects of processes, comparing inputs,
outputs, and exergy destroyed when energy and materials are converted (Figure 2). There are
numerous resources available to calculate exergy from first principles (the Gibbs free energy
function) (cf., Valero 2006, Szargut 2005), but this approach would be more suitable for upper
division or graduate chemical engineering courses. The final change is to adopt a textbook
(Allen and Shonnard 2012) to provide more appropriate resources.
An additional option is to increase the size of design teams to four so as to lessen the individual
work load. This is being implemented given the number of students registered in the current
quarter.
A key effectiveness measure for students taking the course as Juniors is an expected positive
benefit to their multi-disciplinary Senior design projects. These generally design, build and
demonstrate electrical and mechanical systems that address a wide range of possible
engineering problems, from managing “phantom power” consumption in developed countries,
to providing electricity or clean water for villages in developing nations.
Among seniors in the design projects course who had taken “Systems Design” as Juniors, all
three “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the course was “helpful” or “very helpful” in preparing
them for the Senior Design Projects course. For students taking the course as Seniors, the
positive responses and specific citations regarding what is most helpful indicate that the course
should also aid students in future engineering and other disciplines because of the increasing
importance of “systems thinking”.

Conclusions
We have introduced an undergraduate “systems design” course which addresses some typical
systems engineering topics in the context of an “appropriate and sustainable” curriculum. The
emphasis on measuring and evaluating sustainability as one of many effects of a system both
reinforces concepts of systems thinking – how systems affect their contexts throughout their
life cycle – and concepts of sustainability and appropriateness – more specific measures
regarding how systems impact their stakeholders and larger context from development through
operations and eventually disposal. By quantifying the sustainability considerations using
exergy and depletion time we can quantitatively address the different life cycle impacts of
different systems, which is a necessary part of making decisions.
Quantitative and qualitative feedback from the first delivery has motivated several
modifications to the annual course. In addition to introducing the concepts of systems
engineering and multi-disciplinary design in the context of sustainability, this course is also
useful in preparing students for their senior year design projects. The feedback of student
evaluations and from the application of their learning to senior design projects also enables
annual improvements. And, as the Seattle Pacific University Engineering Department
enrollment increases, we expect more students to participate in and benefit from this course.

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Biography
Dr. Ron Carson is an Adjunct Professor of Engineering at Seattle Pacific
University, an Adjunct Professor in Systems Engineering at the Missouri
University of Science & Technology, a Fellow of the International
Council on Systems Engineering and a certified Expert Systems
Engineering Professional (ESEP®). He retired in 2015 as a Technical
Fellow in Systems Engineering after 27 years at The Boeing Company.
He is the author of numerous articles regarding requirements analysis and
systems engineering measurement, and is the developer of numerous
industry systems engineering training courses. He has been issued five US patents in satellite
communications, and two patents regarding “Structured Requirements Generation and
Assessment”. His current interests are in quantitatively incorporating sustainability
considerations in systems engineering methodologies and education. Dr. Carson has a PhD
from the University of Washington in Nuclear Engineering (Experimental Plasma Physics),
and a BS from the California Institute of Technology in Applied Physics.

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