AN OUTER-APPROXIMATION METHOD FOR MULTIPERIOD DESIGN OPTIMIZATION

This paper addresses the development of an efficient optimization method for convex nonlinear and mixed-integer nonlinear multiperiod design optimization problems. An outer-approximation-based decomposition method for solving these problems is proposed. The method is applied to multiperiod multiproduct batch plant problems operating with single product campaigns. Multiperiod models are presented for the design and future capacity expansions of such plants. Numerical results are compared with existing general solution methods such as MINOS and SQP for the nonlinear programming case and DICOPT++ for the mixed-integer nonlinear programming case. The proposed method is advantageous in both robustness and time efficiency, with savings up to 90%.