Optimization of a Paint Mixer

by Christopher Bahamundi

Submitted : Spring 2012

The objective of this project was to use a paint mixer bought by a company and find the optimal agitator power (p) and vessel capacity (Q), the corresponding batch time (T), the hours per year that the optimum vessel will be in operation, the annual costs of the vessel, agitator, electricity, set-up and the total annual cost. In order to meet the objective, I had to formulate a cost function based off of the equations and data given in the problem. After that, I set a constraint to express T in terms of P and Q then took the partial derivative of the cost function with respect to P and Q and set them equal to zero to find P and Q that minimized total cost.

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