Optimal Deployment Plan of Emission Reduction Technologies for TxDOT's Construction Equipment

• Main Author: Bari, Muhammad Ehsanul
• Other Authors: Quadrifoglio, Luca
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Optimal Deployment; Integer Programming Model; Emission Reduction Technologies
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-08-3253

The purpose of this study was to develop and test an optimization model that will provide a deployment plan of emission reduction technologies to reduce emissions from non-road equipment. The focus of the study was on the counties of Texas that have nonattainment (NA) and near-nonattainment (NNA) status. The objective of this research was to develop methodologies that will help to deploy emission reduction technologies for non-road equipment of TxDOT to reduce emissions in a cost effective and optimal manner. Three technologies were considered for deployment in this research, (1) hydrogen enrichment (HE), (2) selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and (3) fuel additive (FA). Combinations of technologies were also considered in the study, i.e. HE with FA, and SCR with FA. Two approaches were investigated in this research. The first approach was "Method 1" in which all the technologies, i.e. FA, HE and SCR were deployed in the NA counties at the first stage. In the second stage the same technologies were deployed in the NNA counties with the remaining budget, if any. The second approach was called "Method 2" in which all the technologies, i.e. FA, HE and SCR were deployed in the NA counties along with deploying only FA in the NNA counties at the first stage. Then with the remaining budget, SCR and HE were deployed in the NNA counties in the second stage. In each of these methods, 2 options were considered, i.e. maximizing NOx reduction with and without fuel economy consideration in the objective function. Thus, the four options investigated each having different mixes of emission reduction technologies include Case 1A: Method 1 with fuel economy consideration; Case 1B: Method 1 without fuel economy consideration; Case 2A: Method 2 with fuel economy consideration; and Case 2B: Method 2 without fuel economy consideration and were programmed with Visual C++ and ILOG CPLEX. These four options were tested for budget amounts ranging from $500 to $1,183,000 and the results obtained show that for a given budget one option representing a mix of technologies often performed better than others. This is conceivable because for a given budget the optimization model selects an affordable option considering the cost of technologies involved while at the same time maximum emission reduction, with and without fuel economy consideration, is achieved. Thus the alternative options described in this study will assist the decision makers to decide about the deployment preference of technologies. For a given budget, the decision maker can obtain the results for total NOx reduction, combined diesel economy and total combined benefit using the four models mentioned above. Based on their requirements and priorities, they can select the desired model and subsequently obtain the required deployment plan for deploying the emission reduction technologies in the NA and NNA counties.