Center Layout Research Articles

Does a more compact urban center layout matter in reducing household carbon emissions? Evidence from Chinese cities

In recent years, compact urban development and carbon emissions reduction have been considered essential approaches for achieving sustainable development goals worldwide. Existing research has focused on the correlation between urban spatial structure and carbon emissions with inconsistent results. This study explores the correlation between urban compactness and household CO₂ emissions. Two indices of urban compactness and four categories of household CO₂ emissions are constructed. We utilize Spatial Durbin Models (SDM) and Spatial Autoregressive Models (SAC) on panel data from over 284 cities at the prefecture level and above in China, spanning 2008–2018. The results indicate that, except for heating consumption, household CO₂ emissions exhibit positive associations with two urban compactness indices. These findings suggest that a city with evenly developed urban cores within a relatively smaller urban area may have better household CO₂ emissions efficiency both locally and regionally. Our study contributes to the existing literature on the sustainability of compact city development with new evidence emphasizing a condensed but balanced urban structure.

Numerical simulation of layout and landscape elements on the thermal environment of urban squares

Extreme urban heat poses significant challenges to the resilience and livability of cities. Urban squares are important open public spaces in cities, serving as main locations for residents' leisure and recreational activities and reflect the identity and cultural background of the cities. Improvement in thermal comfort in urban squares can improve the quality of the urban environment and help mitigate the urban heat island effect. This study developed 18 layout and landscape combination scenarios based on statistical analysis of data from 100 urban squares in regions with hot summers and cold winters. Further, the effectiveness of the proposed design solutions in improving the thermal environment was comprehensively analyzed. The results show that: 1) The block array layout with vegetation, water bodies, and permeable tiles is the most effective scenario, with a PET of 31.84 °C, approaching a comfortable level of heat stress; 2) Among the three layouts, the block array layout optimizes thermal comfort better than the main view entrance layout and main view center layout, and reduces physiological equivalent temperature by 10.51–10.77 °C compared with that of the other two layouts; 3) Scenarios incorporating water bodies provide better optimization effects than those with only trees, even when the total area covered by greenery remains unchanged; and 4) Permeable paving materials with high albedo more effectively improve the thermal comfort. Our results highlight a great potential of comprehensively using multiple landscape strategies to improve outdoor thermal comfort, and provides design basis for enhancing thermal comfort in similar sized urban squares in hot summer and cold winter areas.

Improved ergonomic layout design of metro control center based on virtual simulation technology and genetic algorithm

For the existing control center layout methods do not have targeted measures to implement human factors requirements, this paper puts forward a specific human factors design method for metro control center layout. This method covers the overall process of ergonomic standards and actual engineering requirements in personal space determination, overall location design, and personnel post layout. It introduces discrete personnel simulation to assist in physical control center layout design for the controllers’ safety. To make the posts between the unified lines and the connections between the lines more reasonable, an improved genetic algorithm is used to solve the Systematic Layout Planning. This design flow and algorithm can be quickly adapted according to the project's actual needs and the application of human factors guidelines. This method is also suitable for the layout planning and design of similar large spaces, large numbers of people, and complex associated control centers.

Thermal comfort performance prediction method using sports center layout images in several cold cities based on CNN

Sports centers are core spaces for urban sports and fitness, and reasonable layout of large public buildings can alleviate urban climate issues. But the adverse effects of planning and layout and surrounding urban microclimate on the thermal comfort of outdoor activity space are rarely considered. In this study, an EnergyPlus and Openfoam collaborative computing platform was constructed to calculate the universal thermal climate index of the outdoor space of sports center. By comparing the simulation results of sports centers in three severely cold cities, improving the wind environment of the site's microclimate was found to be key in improving thermal comfort, and the hours of overall site thermal comfort increased mainly in spring and autumn. In this paper, a design method combining numerical simulations and a convolutional neural network was proposed, which can effectively predict the thermal comfort performance of affected sites. The application of this prediction method to the design of the Yingkou Sports Center increased the hours of overall site thermal comfort by 15.01% compared with the original scheme. Synthesizing the results and methods of this study can provide an effective reference and analysis tool for the overall environmental performance of urban areas.

A Two-Step Matheuristics for Order-Picking Process Problems with One-Directional Material Flow and Buffers

The necessity for undertaking this research is driven by the prevailing challenges encountered in logistic centers. This study addresses a logistic order-picking issue involving unidirectional conveyors and buffers, which are assigned to racks and pickers with the objective of minimizing the makespan. Subsequently, two variations of a two-step matheuristic approach are proposed as solution methodologies. These matheuristics entail decomposing the primary order-picking problem into two subproblems. In the initial step, the problem of minimizing the free time for pickers/buffers is solved, followed by an investigation into minimizing order picking makespan. An experimentation phase is carried out across three versions of a distribution center layout, wherein one or more pickers are allocated to one or more buffers, spanning 120 test instances. The research findings indicate that employing a mathematical programming-based technique holds promise for yielding solutions within reasonable computational timeframes, particularly when distributing products to consumers with limited product variety within the order. Furthermore, the proposed technique offers the advantages of expediency and simplicity, rendering it suitable for adoption in the process of designing and selecting order-picking systems.

Optimization design of railway logistics center layout based on mobile cloud edge computing.

With the development of the economy, the importance of railway freight transportation has become essential. The efficiency of a railway logistics center depends on the types, quantities, information exchange, and layout optimization. Edge collaboration technology can consider the advantages of cloud computing's rich computing storage resources and low latency. It can also provide additional computing power and real-time requirements for intelligent railway logistics construction. However, the cloud-side collaboration technology will introduce the wireless communication delay between the mobile terminal and the edge computing server. We designed a two-tier unloading strategy algorithm and solved the optimization problem by determining the unloading decision of each task. The cost of every task is calculated in the onboard device calculation, vehicular edge computing (VEC), and cloud computing server calculation. Simulation results show that the proposed method can save about 40% time delay compared to other unloading strategies.

Simulation of Low Carbon Layout Optimization of Disassembly Line Based on SLP Method

New concepts such as low-carbon economy, low-carbon production, low-carbon living and even low-carbon cities have become popular topics in environmental protection. The disassembly line part of reverse logistics is accompanied by high carbon emission, which is contrary to the original intention of sustainable development. In this paper, we design a systematic low-carbon layout for the disassembly line of the logistics processing center to address the problem of high carbon emissions caused by the unreasonable layout of the disassembly line. Taking the disassembly line in the logistics center of Company H as the research object, the process of the disassembly line is analyzed, and the SLP analysis method is applied to analyze the material flow and the material flow intensity level of the disassembly line layout, and three different optimization schemes are derived. Flexsim software was used to model and run the three initial layout schemes of the disassembly line, and the data related to the waiting time operation of each scheme were obtained. Finally, carbon emission and other disassembly-line-related indicators were introduced and weights were set, and the results were subjected to weighted gray correlation analysis to arrive at the optimal disassembly line layout optimization scheme. This study will provide reference for other reverse logistics processing center layout studies.

Research on STL Model Center Layout Strategy in 3DP Technique

Research on STL Model Center Layout Strategy in 3DP Technique

Exploring the Influence Mechanism of Attractiveness on Wuhan’s Urban Commercial Centers by Modifying the Classic Retail Model

The attractiveness of commercial centers is one of the core issues in urban and rural planning research. To deepen the theoretical understanding of attractiveness and optimize modeling, we empirically analyzed the factors and mechanisms influencing the attractiveness of Wuhan’s commercial centers by improving the classic retail model and testing the age differentiation of mechanisms. The results indicate the following: (1) there is an obvious attractiveness gap in the commercial centers examined, and six have not met their planning expectations; (2) intensive and abundant shopping services, domestic services, sports and leisure services, and medical care services all promote attractiveness, but their impact on customers of different ages varies greatly. For young consumers, shopping services have the greatest effect on attractiveness, whereas for middle-aged and elderly consumers, sports and leisure services have the greatest effect; (3) the accumulation of length of development increases the likelihood of young people’s patronage, but the effect is weak; (4) traffic resistance shows a stable inhibitory effect, and middle-aged and elderly people are more sensitive to travel time than youth; (5) improving the retail model is effective, and the model is more powerful in explaining young consumers. This research also puts forward policy recommendations for the commercial centers’ industry configuration, new and old combinations, and traffic accessibility, and then proposes planning countermeasures for Wuhan’s city- and-county-level commercial center layout, local commercial land morphology organization, and the construction optimization of commercial centers that have not met expectations.

Shifting to energy efficient hybrid cooled data centers using novel embedded floor tiles heat exchangers

With the remarkable surge in IT power densities and energy consumption, the data center industry is starting to adopt energy and thermally-efficient single-phase cooling technologies. For many legacy data centers worldwide, the lack of a primary chilled water source is a substantial barrier to adopting single-phase technologies. In this study, the necessity of having a facility chilled water source for deploying liquid cooling solutions is eliminated by introducing a solution that does not require bringing in any modification of the data center layout. This simple solution proposes integrating liquid to air heat exchangers with the floor tiles to eject heat from the liquid-cooled IT equipment into the room air. An experimentally validated CFD modeling approach is used to investigate the performance of these heat exchangers. Results show that by installing two heat exchangers in different cold aisles, a significant amount of cooling load is handled at the design point conditions. When they are tested under different operational conditions, the cooling capacity of these heat exchangers is shown to be sensitive to the supply air temperature. To overcome the operational constraints stemming from the supply air temperature, an alternative configuration with just one heat exchanger installed in the hot aisle is considered and discussed. Results indicate that the second configuration shows superior performance to the first one in terms of sensitivity to supply air temperature and cooling capacity. Lastly, with this configuration, the data center utilizes energy extremely efficiently and achieves a power usage effectiveness of 1.06.

Research on distribution center layout optimization based on genetic algorithm

As the core of logistics system, distribution center is not only beneficial to the construction of modern logistics environment, but also to the realization of the overall benefits of logistics system. In order to improve the operation efficiency and have no limitations, we need to design the distribution center as a whole. In this paper, the system layout planning (SLP) combined with genetic algorithm is used to optimize the distribution center. In the use of system layout planning to get the comprehensive relationship between the functional areas, combined with the relevant constraints, build the objective function model, using MATLAB to run the genetic algorithm. The feasibility and rationality of the model are verified by an example. In this paper, the distribution center function area layout problem is regarded as a mathematical optimization problem, and the application of genetic algorithm in the model improves the quantifiable accuracy.

Research of parameter optimization of double trailing arm suspension mechanism for integrated wheel side deceleration electric drive system

This paper put forward the solution of the wheel side deceleration electric drive system of double trailing arm suspension, through the combination of the trailing arm suspension and the electric drive system of wheel side deceleration. And the geometric mathematical model of the double trailing arm suspension based on the four-bar mechanism was established. MATLAB executable file and the program interface was compiled, which quickly located the motor center layout position under the given conditions. When the wheel jumps, the center distance between the motor and the wheel remains unchanged. According to the reasonable parameters of the trailing arm structure provided by MATLAB, CATIA three-dimensional modeling was carried out, and ADAMS was imported for kinematics simulation, which verified the feasibility of the design scheme of the double trailing arm suspension and the MATLAB program.

Organization and Arrangement of Social Centers for Women in Challenging Situations

The purpose of this research is to justify the necessity of multidimensional women crisis center arrangement. Women in modern society are the most vulnerable to challenging situations in life. This situation is supported by the cultural patterns in the society, financial and legal insecurity of married women. The analysis of the current situation in Russia showed that there is public awareness is low and the number of crisis centers that help overcome life challenges is small in the country. Currently, there is no uniform statistical database of all persons suffering from domestic violence, no correlations found between the crisis center arrangement standards and the population size of cities. This research states and solves the following problems: studying the medical and psychological aspects of architectural solution impacts on people’s health, analyzing crisis center arrangement from the point of view of sociology, studying the experience of Russian and foreign crisis center designs, inspecting the existing center premises, determining their pluses and minuses in operation, analyzing various social center layout options. Based on the performed analysis of the experimental project, the authors formulated the basic principles for crisis center design. First of all, it is necessary to determine the current demand for the center’s services in the city, as well as center funding opportunities. The preferred option shall be multidimensional centers with temporary accommodation functions. The center territory must be divided into private rest zones and public areas, and the visitors must be classified depending on the purpose of their visit, e.g. consultations or classes. There must be separate rooms for center residents and the employees. Creating a positive living environment - the architecture of center buildings must be in harmony with the surrounding area, and the interiors must use balanced, non-aggressive forms and green plants to reduce visitors’ stress levels. Mobility-impaired people must have easy access to the crisis center premises by installing special equipment for visitors with disabilities. The research confirmed that it is necessary to establish multidimensional help centers for women in challenging situations and demonstrated the importance of developing universal principles for architectural and planning solutions used in such centers. This article is the first one in a series of crisis center research aimed at the study of the impact of architectural solutions on the health and psychological state of women in challenging situations.

Estimation of a possibility to transform a technological complex of the liquidated coal mine into the data processing center (data-center)

Today, in order to develop a contemporary society, assimilation of the necessary knowledge and organization of information storage, processing and use are the vital tasks. For this purpose, information data centers are being created, which ensure the realization of these tasks at all levels - from national to individual. Accordingly, location, volume and operation speed of the data centers are changing. Any data center is a fairly costly enterprise, building it "from scratch" requires significant material investments and human resources. Therefore, today researches are aimed at reusing areas and buildings of the out-of-date enterprises and organizations with the exhausted resources, but which, due to the acceptable rate of wear and tear, can be transformed into the innovative enterprises. In Ukraine, it is planned to close a number of coal mines, and, as a result, a significant number of industrial areas suitable for the renovation use will be vacated. Organization of a data center based on the existing facilities of the liquidated coal mine is quite possible and advisable; information about this is given in the article. There are many examples (for example, the Europe's largest data center Lefdal Mine Datacenter in Norway) of the data centers created on the basis of the liquidated industrial enterprises which, after their appropriate adaptation and modification, meet all requirements of the international standard ANSI/TIA/EIA-942. In Ukraine, there are also similar projects (for example, the United DC data center), which can be effectively introduced into the infrastructure of any industrial enterprise to be liquidated. The authors of this article have proven that modern coal mines (in particular, their surface technological complex) are essentially suitable for transformation into a data center due to the existing engineering and transport infrastructure, their favorable location and the required protection. The authors also provide information about the structure of the data center, audit of the surface complex in order to determine "bottlenecks" (non-compliance with the requirements of the ANS/TIA/EIA-942 standard), prerequisites for creating a data center on its basis, principles of calculating degree of depreciation of buildings and areas required for data center layout.

The Impact of Infusion Center Layout on Workflow and Satisfactions in Two Cancer Infusion Centers: A Case Study on Staff and Patients.

The objective of this empirical research is to compare nurses' operational workflow and nurses' and patients' satisfactions of two different infusion center designs. One center has a traditional open bay design and the other has semi-private bays. This study also intends to gather baseline data to compare to a future post-occupancy evaluation of a new infusion center where the two existing centers will be combined. The increasing number of patients with cancer diagnosis who refer to infusion centers highlights the importance of design of these centers. The mixed-method approach of this study involves shadowing nurses and surveying nurses and patients. Data collection captured nurses' activities, activity durations, and nurses' and patients' satisfaction with the design of clinics. Comparison of shadowing data indicated that although the infusion centers have different layouts, there are no significant differences in the activities or time spent by nurses in different areas among the centers. Staff, however, have different satisfaction levels with visual and speech privacy, ability to concentrate without distraction, collaboration with other staff, and the process of medication delivery. Patients also had slightly different satisfaction levels with their ability to communicate with staff and design of bays. This research sheds light on operational workflows and satisfaction of staff and patients in two different infusion center design. Considering the limited studies on these settings, this study serves as baseline data to compare to other studies on cancer infusion centers and addresses issues of benchmarking and staff and patient satisfaction.

YI01.03 Making the Most of WCLC: A Guide for First Time Attendees

YI01.03 Making the Most of WCLC: A Guide for First Time Attendees

Research on Distribution Center Layout Based on SLP

Distribution is an important part of logistics. Scientific planning distribution center can not only improve the efficiency of distribution, but also reduce the cost of logistics. The paper adopts the method of SLP to carry out scientific and reasonable layout planning and construction the distribution center. Combining the case analysis, the feasible optimal solution is finally obtained after exploring all the links.

Evaluation of Alternative Labor Levels to Minimize Average Flowtime at Distribution Centers

Labor costs account for the majority of operating expenses for warehouses. However, the suboptimal labor allocation strategy reduces the warehouse operation efficacy significantly. Due to the unbalance workloads, the idle time is observed when the wave picking policy is adopted, which increases the average order flowtime. This paper presents the first study on the distribution center labor allocation with wave picking. Distribution center layout, batch picking routes, conveyor congestion, put-wall capacity and picking device capacity were all considered in the simulation model. The wait time, start time, and finish time of orders in the picking and the sorting area were recorded. The length of the queue on the conveyor and the idle time of each worker were recorded as well. According to the simulation results, the optimal labor allocation strategies under different total labor levels were found. The mathematical relation between best value of the average order flowtime and the number of workers helps the decision maker to determine the total labor levels.

A new solution method of ant colony-based logistic center area layout problem

In today’s world, logistic centers not only play an important roles in sustaining the nation’s economy, they also significantly contribute to the economic and social development of the regions in which they are located. The layout of the center is crucial in ensuring that such important centers are both efficient and productive. To achieve this, this study focuses on the development of a logistic center layout that is integrated with the ant colony optimization algorithm. To this end, the logistic center area layout was developed by applying the developed algorithm to an actual logistic center planned to be constructed. The efficiency of the suggested algorithm was tested in accordance with the benchmark problems in the literature. In addition, a case study was carried out to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The obtained results revealed that the suggested algorithm provided more efficiency than other layouts.

Chip Temperature-Based Workload Allocation for Holistic Power Minimization in Air-Cooled Data Center

Minimizing the energy consumption is a dominant problem in data center design and operation. To cope with this issue, the common approach is to optimize the data center layout and the workload distribution among servers. Previous works have mainly adopted the temperature at the server inlet as the optimization constraint. However, the inlet temperature does not properly characterize the server’s thermal state. In this paper, a chip temperature-based workload allocation strategy (CTWA-MTP) is proposed to reduce the holistic power consumption in data centers. Our method adopts an abstract heat-flow model to describe the thermal environment in data centers and uses a thermal resistance model to describe the convective heat transfer of the server. The core optimizes the workload allocation with respect to the chip temperature threshold. In addition, the temperature-dependent leakage power of the server has been considered in our model. The proposed method is described as a constrained nonlinear optimization problem to find the optimal solution by a genetic algorithm (GA). We applied the method to a sample data center constructed with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. By comparing the simulation results with other different workload allocation strategies, the proposed method prevents the servers from overcooling and achieves a substantial energy saving by optimizing the workload allocation in an air-cooled data center.