COMBINATORIAL ALGORITHMS FOR PROCESS SYNTHESIS

Analysis of the combinatorial properties of process synthesis has been carried out in the present work. Such analysis has given rise to some efficient combinatorial algorithms. Algorithm MSG generates the maximal structure (super-structure) of a process synthesis problem; it can also be the basic algorithm in generating a mathematical programming model for this problem. Algorithm MSG is effective in synthesizing a large industrial process since its complexity grows merely polynomially with the size of the synthesized process. Another algorithm, algorithm SSG, generates the set of feasible process structures from the maximal structure; it leads to additional combinatorial algorithms of process synthesis including those for decomposition and for accelerating branch and bound search. These algorithms have also proved themselves to be efficient in solving large industrial synthesis problems.