N-best Design Options with Strategical Differences in Process Network Synthesis

Publication Name: Chemical Engineering Transactions

Publication Date: 2025-01-01

Volume: 120

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 409-414

Description:

The main goal of Process Network Synthesis is usually to find the lowest-cost process for a given problem. Since the model is not able to account for every parameter of an industrial realisation, the decision makers prefer to have alternatives, which can be provided when generating the n-best solutions. This, however, comes with another issue, specifically that several of the near-optimal solutions are almost identical to the optimal one, and only differ in one or two operating units. Thus, the next step to improve the generation of feasible and performant alternatives is to provide process designs with meaningful differences from the optimum. Meaningful differences between designs have to be defined by the decision makers. These are differences that the decision makers consider as major strategic questions, while other changes in the process constitute fine details where simply selecting the lowest cost option is enough. The current work describes a branch-and-bound algorithm that is able to generate the n-best strategically different process designs. The difference between considering and ignoring strategic differences when generating n-best solutions is illustrated via a case study.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3303/CET25120069

Authors - 3