Efficient Method for Optimizing Calcium Silicate Masonry Unit Manufacturing Using Simulation-Based Optimization and Decomposition

This paper describes an overall, simulation-based optimization approach to control plant operations for manufacturing calcium silicate masonry units (CS), which is directed towards and thus immediately applicable to practical processes. Starting from an investigation and classification of the CS production in order to differentiate the properties of each sub-process, specific target criteria are derived. To enable the influencing of these targets, relevant parameters including their mutual interdependencies are identified. On this basis, the criticality of each process step is assessed in order to determine improvement potentials and to investigate possible adjustments to the parameters.The elementary production types indicate a mix of the discontinuous and continuous processing in CS plants. Particularly, this work shows that through interrupting the continuous material flow, the hardening process is the main criteria for a plant’s success in meeting its targets, especially concerning energy efficiency. To achieve a feasible approach, the work develops a solving method geared to an optimized hardening process.Therefore, a formulation of a measureable target system is established, which is the prerequisite for modeling the whole optimization problem. An expedient decomposition of this optimization model to smaller sub-problems provides an efficient solving of these complex job-scheduling problems, in order to direct the method towards an operative use. The paper concludes with the determination of potential solving procedures for the overall problem and appropriate algorithms for solving the sub-problems.