This work presents a review of studies on the process economics of ethanol production from lignocellulosic materials published since 1996. Our objective was to identify the most costly process steps and the impact of various parameters on the final production cost, e.g. plant capacity, raw material cost, and overall product yield, as well as process configuration. The variation in estimated eth...

In this paper, we propose LEMP as a model-driven process to develop a language endowed with a set of derived artifacts (syntax, interchange format, APIs, ...) and with a well defined formal semantics. The process exploits the Model Driven Engineering principles of metamodeling, model transformation and automatic generation of language processing tools. We describe the requirements to fulfill an...

Systems engineering environments usually involve multi-disciplinary engineering domains, such as mechanical, electrical, and software engineering, to cooperate and reach the common goals, e.g., to produce good quality products in time. Validation of systems engineering processes is challenging, because typically there are large numbers of possible combinations of heterogeneous sub-processes to ...

In the 21 century, modern engineering design is practiced as an interdisciplinary endeavor requiring individual engineers to work as part of a team that involves a range of specialists. An interdisciplinary approach to engineering design sensitizes team members (students, faculty and industry partners) to multiple perspectives and discourages them from taking comfort in the singular domain to w...

The Model Driven Approach (MDA) as supported by the Object Management Group (OMG) describes the structural requirements of an engineering discipline where models, instead of source code, comprise the primary artifact. Model Driven Engineering (MDE), as outlined by Stuart Kent, brings forth the dynamic aspects of engineering, where process adherence and rigorous commitment to analysis are equall...

1 Ming T. Tham, Dept. of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, England, [email protected] 2 Richard W. Jones, School of Engineering, University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, England. [email protected] Abstract Process Control is acknowledged to be the technology that has the greatest potential for improving competitiveness in the ...

This paper presents a didactic activity concerning the use of PI/PID tuning rules, also addressing the issue of how to achieve a knowledgeable selection of the most suited one for the particular problem at hand. The activity aims at making the students aware of the rationale of said rules, and therefore of their suitability for the dynamic (not necessarily physical) characteristics of the contr...

In practical system identification, process optimization and controller design, it is often desirable to simultaneously handle several objectives and constraints. In some cases, these objectives and constraints are non-commensurable and they are not explicitly/mathematically available. This paper proposes a new subjective optimization method based on interactive evolutionary computation (IEC) t...

The need for a better productivity of system engineering teams, as well as a better quality of products motivates the development of solutions to adapt methods to the project situation at hand. This is known as situational method engineering. In this paper we propose a generic process model to support the construction of a new method by assembling method chunks generated from different methods ...

This paper presents a knowledge engineering approach for the elicitation of know-how about engineering processes, the reuse of process patterns and its application to the coordination of concurrent engineering tasks. Process know-how is instrumental to govern engineering teams. Process know-how also leads to better process awareness, that is, pro-active services deliver related information at t...