Browsing by Subject "design optimization"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Design of a compressed air energy storage system for hydrostatic wind turbines
    (Elsevier, 2018-03-04) Ali, Ammar E.; Libardi, Nicholas C.; Anwar, Sohel; Izadian, Afshin; Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
    Integration of Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) system with a wind turbine is critical in optimally harvesting wind energy given the fluctuating nature of power demands. Here we consider the design of a CAES for a wind turbine with hydrostatic powertrain. The design parameters of the CAES are determined based on simulation of the integrated system model for a combination of these parameter values, namely the compression ratios of the air compressors and the expanders and the air tank size. The results of the simulations were used to choose the best design parameters, which would produce the best stable performance through increased energy output of the integrated CAES and wind turbine based on the intermittent wind profile. Simulation results for a 600 kW rated power wind turbine with integrated CAES indicate that increasing the tank size and compression ratio will improve the overall power quality through increased energy output up to a limit beyond which the power quality exhibits only marginal improvement.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Thermo-mechanical Design Optimization of Conformal Cooling Channels using Design of Experiments Approach
    (Elsevier, 2017) Jahan, Suchana A.; Wu, Tong; Zhang, Yi; Zhang, Jing; Tovar, Andres; El-Mounayri, Hazim; Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
    Plastic injection molding is a versatile process and a major part of the present plastic manufacturing industry. Traditional die design is limited to straight (drilled) cooling channels, which don’t impart optimal thermal (or thermo-mechanical) performance. With the advent of additive manufacturing technology, design of injection molding tools with conformal cooling channels is now possible. The incorporation of conformal cooling channels can improve the thermal performance of an injection mold, though it may compromise the structural or mechanical stability of the mold. However, optimum conformal channels based on thermo-mechanical performance are not found in the literature. This paper proposes a design methodology to generate optimized design configurations of such channels in plastic injection molds. Design of experiments (DOEs) technique is used to study the effect of critical design parameters of conformal channels. In addition, a trade-off technique is utilized to obtain optimum design configurations of conformal cooling channels for “best” thermo-mechanical performance of a mold.