(133b) Coupling Water-Reuse Network Designs for Agile Manufacturing

Water-Reuse Network Design (WRND) is widely studied and implemented in water-using industrial processes to reduce fresh water consumption and reduce waste water generation. However, previous studies are all exclusively focusing on one optimal WRND for the concerned process system. Actually, the quest for agile manufacturing by some multi-purpose processes needs the process itself having the maximum operational flexibility to deal with various production recipes, which involves the switch of multiple WRNDs. Thus, a smart way for the agile manufacturing is to couple different recipe-based WRND designs into one super design, and then through an effective control strategy to accomplish the functional design for each production recipe. In this paper, a novel methodology is developed for this purpose. It can design a flexible water reuse network based on different operation purposes, and simultaneously considering water flow rate control, multiple WRND integration, and ordinary process constraints. The developed systematic methodology is general and thus applicable for many water-using industrial processes, where multiple WRNDs need to be integrated. Several case studies are employed to demonstrate the efficacy of the development and its significance in the context of agile manufacturing.