Wayne State University CBET-0730383
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: REACHING SUSTAINABILITY UNDER UNCERTAINTY: A METHODOLOGICAL STUDY ON MODELING AND DECISION-MAKING
This project addresses a key problem, making decisions for sustainable industrial development in the face of uncertainty. The project will (i) classify and characterize uncertainties that are commonly encountered in sustainable engineering, (ii) analyze and assess the applicability of three types of approaches to handling severe uncertainty: the information gap approach, the probability bounds analysis approach, and the fuzzy logic approach, (iii) develop a general guideline for handling uncertainties in modeling, analysis, and decision making, (iv) develop a novel methodology for multi-objective optimization under uncertainty, and (iv) test the guideline and the methodology through studying a number of industrial processes as well as large-scale industrial ecosystems. Two case studies based on the petrochemical and automotive industries will be used to verify the methodologies.
The broader impacts of this work include developing tools that will allow robust decisions for sustainable industrial development. The developments should contribute to the enrichment of the knowledge base for modeling and decision-making and be useful for handling a variety of types of engineering problems as well as for addressing certain social science issues. Results will be incorporated in graduate and undergraduate course work. An on-line forum will be created to help disseminate results. Graduate students will be involved in the work at both institutions and undergraduate students from Lamar University will participate.
