TY - CHAP A1 - Schänzle, Christian A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Ederer, Thorsten A1 - Lorenz, Ulf A1 - Pelz, Peter F. T1 - As good as it can be: Ventilation system design by a combined scaling and discrete optimization method T2 - Proceedings of FAN 2015 N2 - The understanding that optimized components do not automatically lead to energy-efficient systems sets the attention from the single component on the entire technical system. At TU Darmstadt, a new field of research named Technical Operations Research (TOR) has its origin. It combines mathematical and technical know-how for the optimal design of technical systems. We illustrate our optimization approach in a case study for the design of a ventilation system with the ambition to minimize the energy consumption for a temporal distribution of diverse load demands. By combining scaling laws with our optimization methods we find the optimal combination of fans and show the advantage of the use of multiple fans. Y1 - 2015 N1 - Proceedings of FAN 2015, Lyon (France), 15 – 17 April 2015 SP - 1 EP - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pöttgen, Philipp A1 - Ederer, Thorsten A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Lorenz, Ulf A1 - Pelz, Peter F. T1 - Examination and optimization of a heating circuit for energy-efficient buildings JF - Energy Technology N2 - The conference center darmstadtium in Darmstadt is a prominent example of energy efficient buildings. Its heating system consists of different source and consumer circuits connected by a Zortström reservoir. Our goal was to reduce the energy costs of the system as much as possible. Therefore, we analyzed its supply circuits. The first step towards optimization is a complete examination of the system: 1) Compilation of an object list for the system, 2) collection of the characteristic curves of the components, and 3) measurement of the load profiles of the heat and volume-flow demand. Instead of modifying the system manually and testing the solution by simulation, the second step was the creation of a global optimization program. The objective was to minimize the total energy costs for one year. We compare two different topologies and show opportunities for significant savings. KW - energy transfer KW - heating system KW - programming KW - system optimization KW - technical operations research Y1 - 2015 SN - 2194-4296 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ente.201500252 VL - 4 IS - 1 SP - 136 EP - 144 PB - WILEY-VCH Verlag CY - Weinheim ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Ederer, Thorsten A1 - Farnetane, Lucas S. A1 - Pöttgen, Philipp A1 - Vergé, Angela A1 - Pelz, Peter F. T1 - Multicriterial design of a hydrostatic transmission system via mixed-integer programming T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2015 N2 - In times of planned obsolescence the demand for sustainability keeps growing. Ideally, a technical system is highly reliable, without failures and down times due to fast wear of single components. At the same time, maintenance should preferably be limited to pre-defined time intervals. Dispersion of load between multiple components can increase a system’s reliability and thus its availability inbetween maintenance points. However, this also results in higher investment costs and additional efforts due to higher complexity. Given a specific load profile and resulting wear of components, it is often unclear which system structure is the optimal one. Technical Operations Research (TOR) finds an optimal structure balancing availability and effort. We present our approach by designing a hydrostatic transmission system. Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-319-42901-4 SN - 978-3-319-42902-1 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42902-1_41 N1 - International Conference of the German, Austrian and Swiss Operations Research Societies (GOR, ÖGOR, SVOR/ASRO), University of Vienna, Austria, September 1-4, 2015 SP - 301 EP - 307 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Ederer, Thorsten A1 - Pöttgen, Philipp A1 - Lorenz, Ulf A1 - Pelz, Peter F. ED - Pelz, Peter F. ED - Groche, Peter T1 - Multicriterial optimization of technical systems considering multiple load and availability scenarios JF - Applied Mechanics and Materials N2 - Cheap does not imply cost-effective -- this is rule number one of zeitgeisty system design. The initial investment accounts only for a small portion of the lifecycle costs of a technical system. In fluid systems, about ninety percent of the total costs are caused by other factors like power consumption and maintenance. With modern optimization methods, it is already possible to plan an optimal technical system considering multiple objectives. In this paper, we focus on an often neglected contribution to the lifecycle costs: downtime costs due to spontaneous failures. Consequently, availability becomes an issue. KW - sustainability KW - availability KW - energy efficiency KW - mixed-integer linear programming KW - system synthesis Y1 - 2015 SN - 1660-9336 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.807.247 VL - 807 SP - 247 EP - 256 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Lorenz, Imke-Sophie A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Pelz, Peter F. T1 - Resilience enhancement of critical infrastructure – graph-theoretical resilience analysis of the water distribution system in the German city of Darmstadt T2 - 14th WCEAM Proceedings N2 - Water suppliers are faced with the great challenge of achieving high-quality and, at the same time, low-cost water supply. Since climatic and demographic influences will pose further challenges in the future, the resilience enhancement of water distribution systems (WDS), i.e. the enhancement of their capability to withstand and recover from disturbances, has been in particular focus recently. To assess the resilience of WDS, graph-theoretical metrics have been proposed. In this study, a promising approach is first physically derived analytically and then applied to assess the resilience of the WDS for a district in a major German City. The topology based resilience index computed for every consumer node takes into consideration the resistance of the best supply path as well as alternative supply paths. This resistance of a supply path is derived to be the dimensionless pressure loss in the pipes making up the path. The conducted analysis of a present WDS provides insight into the process of actively influencing the resilience of WDS locally and globally by adding pipes. The study shows that especially pipes added close to the reservoirs and main branching points in the WDS result in a high resilience enhancement of the overall WDS. KW - Resilient infrastructure KW - Resilience assessment KW - Resilience metric graph theory KW - Water distribution system KW - Case study Y1 - 2020 SN - 978-3-030-64228-0 SN - 978-3-030-64227-3 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64228-0_13 N1 - 14th WCEAM Proceedings. World Congress on Engineering Asset Management, 28-31 July 2019, Singapore Part of the Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering book series (LNME) SP - 137 EP - 149 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Lorenz, Imke-Sophie A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Pelz, Peter F. ED - Neufeld, Janis S. ED - Buscher, Udo ED - Lasch, Rainer ED - Möst, Dominik ED - Schönberger, Jörn T1 - Assessing and Optimizing the Resilience of Water Distribution Systems Using Graph-Theoretical Metrics T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2019 N2 - Water distribution systems are an essential supply infrastructure for cities. Given that climatic and demographic influences will pose further challenges for these infrastructures in the future, the resilience of water supply systems, i.e. their ability to withstand and recover from disruptions, has recently become a subject of research. To assess the resilience of a WDS, different graph-theoretical approaches exist. Next to general metrics characterizing the network topology, also hydraulic and technical restrictions have to be taken into account. In this work, the resilience of an exemplary water distribution network of a major German city is assessed, and a Mixed-Integer Program is presented which allows to assess the impact of capacity adaptations on its resilience. KW - OR 2019 KW - business analytics KW - decision analytics KW - digital economy KW - mathematical optimization Y1 - 2020 SN - 978-3-030-48439-2 SN - 978-3-030-48438-5 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48439-2_63 N1 - Annual International Conference of the German Operations Research Society (GOR), Dresden, Germany, September 4-6, 2019 SP - 521 EP - 527 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Müller, Tim M. A1 - Schmitt, Andreas A1 - Leise, Philipp A1 - Meck, Tobias A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Pelz, Peter F. A1 - Pfetsch, Marc E. T1 - Validation of an optimized resilient water supply system T2 - Uncertainty in Mechanical Engineering N2 - Component failures within water supply systems can lead to significant performance losses. One way to address these losses is the explicit anticipation of failures within the design process. We consider a water supply system for high-rise buildings, where pump failures are the most likely failure scenarios. We explicitly consider these failures within an early design stage which leads to a more resilient system, i.e., a system which is able to operate under a predefined number of arbitrary pump failures. We use a mathematical optimization approach to compute such a resilient design. This is based on a multi-stage model for topology optimization, which can be described by a system of nonlinear inequalities and integrality constraints. Such a model has to be both computationally tractable and to represent the real-world system accurately. We therefore validate the algorithmic solutions using experiments on a scaled test rig for high-rise buildings. The test rig allows for an arbitrary connection of pumps to reproduce scaled versions of booster station designs for high-rise buildings. We experimentally verify the applicability of the presented optimization model and that the proposed resilience properties are also fulfilled in real systems. KW - Optimization KW - Mixed-integer nonlinear programming KW - Water distribution system KW - Resilience KW - Validation Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-3-030-77255-0 SN - 978-3-030-77256-7 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77256-7_7 N1 - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Uncertainty in Mechanical Engineering (ICUME 2021), June 7–8, 2021 SP - 70 EP - 80 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Leise, Philipp A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Simon, Nicolai A1 - Pelz, Peter F. T1 - Finding global-optimal gearbox designs for battery electric vehicles T2 - Optimization of complex systems - theory, models, algorithms and applications : WCGO 2019 N2 - In order to maximize the possible travel distance of battery electric vehicles with one battery charge, it is mandatory to adjust all components of the powertrain carefully to each other. While current vehicle designs mostly simplify the powertrain rigorously and use an electric motor in combination with a gearbox with only one fixed transmission ratio, the use of multi-gear systems has great potential. First, a multi-speed system is able to improve the overall energy efficiency. Secondly, it is able to reduce the maximum momentum and therefore to reduce the maximum current provided by the traction battery, which results in a longer battery lifetime. In this paper, we present a systematic way to generate multi-gear gearbox designs that—combined with a certain electric motor—lead to the most efficient fulfillment of predefined load scenarios and are at the same time robust to uncertainties in the load. Therefore, we model the electric motor and the gearbox within a Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Program, and optimize the efficiency of the mechanical parts of the powertrain. By combining this mathematical optimization program with an unsupervised machine learning algorithm, we are able to derive global-optimal gearbox designs for practically relevant momentum and speed requirements. KW - Powertrain KW - Gearbox KW - Optimization KW - BEV KW - WLTP Y1 - 2019 SN - 978-3-030-21802-7 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21803-4_91 SP - 916 EP - 925 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Meck, Marvin M. A1 - Müller, Tim M. A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Pelz, Peter F. T1 - Improving an industrial cooling system using MINLP, considering capital and operating costs T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2019 N2 - The chemical industry is one of the most important industrial sectors in Germany in terms of manufacturing revenue. While thermodynamic boundary conditions often restrict the scope for reducing the energy consumption of core processes, secondary processes such as cooling offer scope for energy optimisation. In this contribution, we therefore model and optimise an existing cooling system. The technical boundary conditions of the model are provided by the operators, the German chemical company BASF SE. In order to systematically evaluate different degrees of freedom in topology and operation, we formulate and solve a Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Program (MINLP), and compare our optimisation results with the existing system. KW - Engineering optimisation KW - Mixed-integer programming KW - Industrial optimisation KW - Cooling system KW - Process engineering Y1 - 2020 SN - 978-3-030-48438-5 (Print) SN - 978-3-030-48439-2 (Online) U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48439-2_61 N1 - Annual International Conference of the German Operations Research Society (GOR), Dresden, Germany, September 4-6, 2019. SP - 505 EP - 512 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Müller, Tim M. A1 - Leise, Philipp A1 - Lorenz, Imke-Sophie A1 - Altherr, Lena A1 - Pelz, Peter F. T1 - Optimization and validation of pumping system design and operation for water supply in high-rise buildings JF - Optimization and Engineering N2 - The application of mathematical optimization methods for water supply system design and operation provides the capacity to increase the energy efficiency and to lower the investment costs considerably. We present a system approach for the optimal design and operation of pumping systems in real-world high-rise buildings that is based on the usage of mixed-integer nonlinear and mixed-integer linear modeling approaches. In addition, we consider different booster station topologies, i.e. parallel and series-parallel central booster stations as well as decentral booster stations. To confirm the validity of the underlying optimization models with real-world system behavior, we additionally present validation results based on experiments conducted on a modularly constructed pumping test rig. Within the models we consider layout and control decisions for different load scenarios, leading to a Deterministic Equivalent of a two-stage stochastic optimization program. We use a piecewise linearization as well as a piecewise relaxation of the pumps’ characteristics to derive mixed-integer linear models. Besides the solution with off-the-shelf solvers, we present a problem specific exact solving algorithm to improve the computation time. Focusing on the efficient exploration of the solution space, we divide the problem into smaller subproblems, which partly can be cut off in the solution process. Furthermore, we discuss the performance and applicability of the solution approaches for real buildings and analyze the technical aspects of the solutions from an engineer’s point of view, keeping in mind the economically important trade-off between investment and operation costs. KW - Technical Operations Research KW - MINLP KW - MILP KW - Experimental validation KW - Pumping systems Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11081-020-09553-4 SN - 1573-2924 VL - 2021 IS - 22 SP - 643 EP - 686 PB - Springer ER -