Using coupled simulation for planning of energy efficient production facilities

To meet the increasing requirements of sustainable production and to assure economic competitiveness, novel strategic approaches are necessary in designing production systems and to increase energy efficiency in the manufacturing industry. Individual areas within production facilities (e.g. production system, energy system, building hull) can be analyzed individually by using simulation-based methods. In order to access additional optimization potential, it is necessary to expand the boundaries of such simulations and to consider dynamic interactions between individual optimization fields. This work presents an approach for an interdisciplinary co-simulation, in which, for an overall integrated simulation, several simulation environments are coupled that periodically exchange data quasi-parallel at runtime. This allows not only to combine different model descriptions, but also multiple calculation algorithms, each specifically tailored to the individual needs of the respective field of engineering. A case study of a metal-cutting production facility presents an application example. The goal is to provide a decision-support tool for the early planning stages of production facilities that allows making qualified predictions about the effect and financial impact of different energy saving measures.