... and on the system total cost; (iii) ranking of system components into main, secondary, and remainder; (iv) identification of the predominant cost (exergy destruction or investment) for main and ... components as main, secondary, and remainder, and to define main decision variables subgroups associated with the main and secondary components. The subgroups may have common decision variables, and their ... Institute of Engineering (IME-RJ), Brazil, in 1984. Later, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he graduate d with an M.Sc. Degree from PUC-RJ in 1991, and with a D.Sc. Degree from UFRJ in 2003, both in...