OPTIMIZING A POWER PLANT LAYOUT BY INTEGRATING THE LAYOUT EVALUATION TOOL INTO THE AUTOCAD

Abstract

The first main objective of this thesis is to explore if layouts can be cost optimized by utilizing the Citec internal cost estimation tool, namely Layout Evaluation Tool (LET-tool), as part of the layout designing process.

The background of this thesis is based on the computer aided design, features of AutoCAD and Visual Basic for Application (VBA) and the layout designing processes in Citec. In addition, the functionalities of LET-tool are introduced. With LET-tool the designer is able to evaluate the cost structure of the power plant and recognize the cost critical areas. By knowing the cost critical areas designers can try to optimize the layout. In order to test the usefulness of the LET-tool, three real life project cases are introduced and studied in this thesis. These cases were picked from Citec’s sales projects designed during the year 2016. The goal is to examine whether savings can be achieved in total power plant construction costs by optimizing the cost critical areas that the LET-tool helps the designer to recognize. Usage of the LET-tool was discovered to have a significant positive impact on power plant cost efficiency. All three case studies examined in this thesis support that the LET-tool should be utilized in every layout designing project.

Today, using LET-tool requires lots of manual work from the designers and that is why many designers do not have the time to utilize the tool in their daily work. The second main objective of this thesis is to integrate the existing Excel based LET-tool to AutoCAD so that it is fast and easy to use in all Citec layout teams. The integration of the LET-tool is implemented to AutoCAD by using the VBA programming language.

During the thesis work, some interesting future research ideas were discovered such as the use of evolutionary and genetic algorithms in layout design. In addition, a lot of new development ideas for layout team were discovered that hopefully will be implemented in the near future.