#New young models skin#

So from a sustainability point of view, efficiency alone isn’t the answer.” Modelling new solutionsĭigital twins usually start with existing industrial processes. If you’re talking about resources, you potentially use more of them rather than less. William Stanley Jevons was an English economist in the 19th century and he observed that if you make things more efficient, you tend to use them more. “However, one thing I’m aware of is the Jevons paradox. “Efficiency is an important step on the journey to sustainability,” says Young. Digital modelling can help optimise these types of circular-economy processes. For example, recycling or repurposing materials that would previously have gone into the waste stream adds additional steps for industry. More than a decade ago, he won awards for work he did in that area with the Māngere Wastewater Treatment Plant.Įfficiency is also important when sustainability goals make processes more complex.

Some of the early work Young did in digital modelling was in helping water treatment plants use less energy to achieve the same or better clean-water outcomes. Greater efficiency can make processes more sustainable by decreasing energy and material inputs. One important use for digital twins is to help industry increase efficiency. Sometimes you come up with really interesting, counterintuitive results.” From efficiency to sustainability Milk powder plant and digital twin “You can really stress the system and push it in ways you wouldn’t push the real process because it would be expensive or dangerous to do. “Digital twins allow you to engage in supported thought experiments,” says Young. For example, a digital twin can model how a factory will interact with community infrastructure if it becomes a net producer of renewable energy rather than a consumer. For example, what happens when heat pumps are installed in a factory? When a company switches to renewables? More complex models are possible too. Once a digital twin is validated as running realistically, it can model what happens when circumstances change. They account for predictable events such as equipment ageing or getting gummed up as well as unpredictable ones such as power outages and earthquakes. His computer-based models follow the laws of physics, chemistry and biology.

#New young models skin#

They’re detailed models of factories and processes, hyper-realistic not in the sense of skin tones or mannerisms but in their inputs, functions and outputs. Young’s digital twins aren’t avatars or chatbots. To make change more predictable, Young, a member of the Chemical and Materials Engineering department, is working with a number of companies to model process systems by creating digital twins of those systems. That’s why University of Auckland Professor Brent Young is working to help industry de-risk change, particularly in favour of sustainability. Yet the rewards of sustainability can be great both for a business’s bottom line and for the planet. You might even find your carbon footprint doesn’t shrink as much as you expect.Ĭhange is fraught with risk. The new equipment might not run smoothly. Where do you start? If your machines currently run on fossil fuels, they might be expensive to replace or convert. Imagine you’re a factory owner who wants to make your operations more sustainable.