In this paper, we address the problem of designing flexible plant layouts for manufacturing facilities where product demands are subject to variability. A flexible layout is one that maintains low material handling costs despite fluctuations in the product demand levels. We extend existing procedures for design of flexible layouts by (1) explicitly capturing the stochastic nature of product dem...

Abstract—A steam power plant is housed with various types of equipments like boiler, turbine, heat exchanger etc. These equipments are mainly connected with piping systems. Such a piping layout design depends mainly on stress analysis and flexibility. It will vary with respect to pipe geometrical properties, pressure, temperature, and supports. The present paper is to analyze the presence and e...

In this paper we present a set of extension techniques to stabilize interactive dynamic graph layout algorithms. It works with different existing Focus & Context methods. We first deal with the initial placement of newly inserted nodes to mitigate acting forces in the layout algorithm. Then, their influence on the existing layout is gradually increased to create a smooth transition between the ...

In this paper the layout of pilot plant (100 kg/h) for the supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of biomass is proposed. The proposed layout involves a reactor, units to separate water and hydrogen, a burner and several heat exchangers. This scheme was also simulated by means of the commercial software Aspen Plus (Aspen Tech, Inc.) in order to state the influence of different parameters such ...

In this paper, we present new visual analysis methods for history of the FIFA World Cup competition data, a social network from Graph Drawing 2006 Competition. Our methods are based on the use of network analysis method, and new visualization methods for dynamic graphs with dynamic hierarchy and geographic clustering. More specifically, we derive a dynamic network with geographic clustering fro...

Safety and performance are important factors in the design and operation of chemical plants. This paper describes the formulation of a mixed integer nonlinear programming model for the optimization of plant layout with safety considerations. The model considers a quantitative risk analysis to take safety into account, and a bowtie analysis is used to identify possible catastrophic outcomes. The...

In this paper, a quaternion firefly algorithm is utilized to solve a multi-row facility layout design problem with the objective of minimizing the total cost of transportation. A quaternion firefly algorithm takes the motion of the firefly as a quaternion one. Consequently, the solution space is explored more accurately and the answers are of higher quality. That is, the answers are considerabl...

The double row layout problem (DRLP) seeks to determine optimal machine locations on either side of an aisle, where the objective has been defined as the minimization of material flow cost among machines while meeting machine clearance constraints. In this paper, we extend existing DRLP formulations in two respects. First, we consider the minimization of layout area besides the usual material f...