Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Operational Planning In Combined Heat And Power Systems, Hariharan Gopalakrishnan

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents methodologies for operational planning in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems. The subject of experimentation is the University of Massachusetts CHP system, which is a 22 MWe/640 MBh system for a district energy application. Systems like this have complex energy flow networks due to multiple interconnected thermodynamic components like gas and steam turbines, boilers and heat recovery steam generators and also interconnection with centralized electric grids. In district energy applications, heat and power requirements vary over 24 hour periods (planning horizon) due to changing weather conditions, time-of-day factors and consumer requirements. System thermal performance is highly dependent …

Moldable Items Packing Optimization, Sima Maleki

Doctoral Dissertations

This research has led to the development of two mathematical models to optimize the problem of packing a hybrid mix of rigid and moldable items within a three-dimensional volume. These two developed packing models characterize moldable items from two perspectives: (1) when limited discrete configurations represent the moldable items and (2) when all continuous configurations are available to the model. This optimization scheme is a component of a lean effort that attempts to reduce the lead-time associated with the implementation of dynamic product modifications that imply packing changes.

To test the developed models, they are applied to the dynamic packing …