Title : Visualizing Material Flows and Performance Data in Recycling Facilities

Project Lead : Malima Wolf From : Massachusetts Institute of Technology (None)

Dates : from -- to 2014-02-18 16:35:29

Description :

Motivation and objectives :
Current material separation system modeling techniques allow us to calculate the material flows with in recycling systems. This calculation is based on material inputs, individual process performance, and the arrangement of process stages. The resulting data about material flow rates can be used to calculate a variety of performance statistics, including material quality and recovery, environmental and energy performance, and economic performance, both on the basis of the whole system and on individual processes within the system. This leads to more performance data than can easily be assessed by just looking at the numbers. At the same time, while viewing a recycling separation facility in operation can indicate much about the conceptual function of each step, it does not give a sense of this performance data. Visualizing this data within the context of a model of a recycling facility would link the material flows and performance data clearly to the configuration of stages. In the case of material flows, for example, the volume of material flow through each stage and the proportion of materials in that flow could be represented visually, allowing for quick assessments of the relative size requirements of individual separation stages or showing which separation stages are weak links in performance. The objective of the project would thus be to visually represent in a 3D model of a recycling facility the performance data of that facility, to lead to easy assessment of stage and system performance.

Teams :
The proposing group consists of Dr. Malima Wolf, but she will be supported in this work by the Separation and Recycling Group of researchers based at MIT. This includes Professor Timothy Gutowski, head of the EBM, Dr. Stanley Gershwin, a research scientist at MIT, and Professor Marcello Colledani, of the Manufacturing and Production Systems group at Politecnico di Milano.

Dates :
starting date : 08 November, 2012
ending date : 21 November, 2012

Facilities descriptions :
http://visionair-browser.g-scop.grenoble-inp.fr/visionair/Browser/Catalogs/MSML.IT.html

Recordings & Results :
The goal of this project is to develop a visualization method for conveying material stream data within factory virtualization models. A visual representation of material flow within a recycling system will allow users of the factory model to understand the performance of that system in a virtual factory model. Ideally, the visual representation of the materials will enable users to comprehend the flow of materials in the facility with greater ease than reading data tables, and provide the additional benefit of being imbedded within the virtual factory model which may convey other types of data about performance of the facility as well as give a sense of the real facility.

Conclusions :
Visualizing material stream data within a system model can convey information more easily than through tables and charts. In this work, we suggested a representation concept for visualizing material flows within the virtual model of a material recycling system, and showed its effectiveness by implementing it within the virtual factory model for the electronics recycling demonstration plant at ITIA-CNR. The visualization concept for the material streams focuses on conveying the mass of different material types flowing to and from each machine, simplifying the visual model by categorizing materials into groups with similar properties and economic value. This will allow users of the model to quickly grasp the paths of different categories of material through the system, where they are being collected and where they are being lost and where the system is performing as expected and where it could use improvement in performance and design.