Concurrent Design: Coal Bulk Terminal Design Based On Integrated Simulation Methods
From Proceeding of Summer Computer Simulation Conference,SCSC95, Ottawa, July 24-26 1994
Roberto Mosca, Pietro Giribone, Agostino G.Bruzzone

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THE SPECIFIC COAL TERMINAL

The plant being studied, which is currently in the design phase on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, will act as a deposit for the coal coming from mines outside Europe and therefore must unload large ships which are built for this type of traffic.
The coal stored in the terminal is then re-distributed to the power plants served by smaller coasting vessels. Therefore, a flexible and efficient plant system must be built to absorb market fluctuations and to handle plant obsolescence. In fact, the terminal in question involves investments of around 25 million dollars and the pay-back time is approximately 8 years. This implies that the design must be correctly defined to provide investors with guaranteed profitability in today's changing market situation.
The plant layout is illustrated in figure 1 (by the graphical interface of the simulator), while the average estimated annual flows is about 5 million of tonns. As can be seen, the plant operating conditions can be divided into four different modes:

transhipment from large capacity ships to lighters
yard layup of ocean-going vessels
lighters taken from the yard
direct transfer to the nearby power plant.

The key factor is therefore to guarantee plant operating efficiency and profitability with a variation in forecast flows for each modality, correctly dimensioning the different components.
By designing the system together with simulation-based experimentation it is possible, on one hand, to integrate the construction scheme with the suggestions necessary to guarantee the objectives and , on the other, to re-adjust the simulation model to reproduce the system with the necessary level of detail.
In this way the simulation model can be built together with the plant design on the basis of the requirements imposed by the design office and to continue the experiments at the same time to provide information relative to combined and/or complex factors (altered market conditions, component wear, variations in operating techniques, layover time of ships at roads, operation downtime due to failures) that traditional design cannot evaluate with adequate detail.