Integrated approaches to the optimal design of multiscale systems

This work is aimed at development of systematic approaches to the design of multiscale systems. Specifically four problems are addressed: environmental impact assessment (EIA) of new and retrofitted industrial processes, integration of process effluents with the macroscopic environmental systems, eco-industrial parks (EIP), and advanced life support (ALS) systems for planetary habitation. While design metrics and specific natures of each problem poses different challenges, there are common themes in the devised solution strategies: a. An integrated approach provides insights unseen by addressing the individual components of the system and, therefore, better understanding and superior results. b. Instead of dealing with multiple scales simultaneously, the design problem is addressed through interconnected stages without infringing upon the optimization degrees of freedom in each stage. This is possible through the concept of targeting. c. Mathematical programming techniques can be used effectively to systematize the integration concepts, the target identification, and the design of multi-scale systems. The dissertation also introduces the following specific contributions: i. For EIA, a new procedure is developed to overcome the limitations of conventional approaches. The introduced procedure is based on three concepts: process synthesis for systematic generation of alternatives and targeting for benchmarking environmental impact ahead of detailed design, integration of alternative with rest of the process, and reverse problem formulation for targeting. ii. For integrating process effluents with macroscopic environmental systems, focus is given to the impact of wastewater discharges on macroscopic watersheds and drainage systems. A reverse problem formulation is introduced to determine maximum allowable process discharges that will meet overall environmental requirements of the watershed. iii. For EIPs, a new design procedure is developed to allow multiple processes to share a common environmental infrastructure, exchange materials, and jointly utilize interception systems that treat waste materials and byproducts. A source-interception-sink representation is developed and modeled through an optimization formulation. Optimal interactions among the various processes and shared infrastructure to be installed are identified. iv. A computational metric is introduced to compare various alternatives in ALS and planetary habitation systems. A selection criterion identifies the alternative which contributes to the maximum reduction of the total ESM of the system.