A Novel Network-Based Continuous-time Framework for Batch Process Scheduling: Modeling and Computational Issues

GIMÉNEZ, DIEGO MARCELO; MARAVELIAS, CHRISTOS; HENNING, GABRIELA

Ischia

Congreso; 20th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering (ESCAPE 20); 2010

European federation of Chemial Engineering

A novel network-based continuous-time representation for the short-term scheduling of batch processes was recently proposed by the authors of this paper (Giménez et al., 2009a).  The approach was then generalized (Giménez et al., 2009b) to tackle several important features found in practice.  This highly expressive proposal allows addressing a wide variety of problems by overcoming numerous limitations of existing scheduling methods for multipurpose batch plants.  However, this expressiveness property is gained at the expense of the computational performance of the proposal.  To tackle this issue, this contribution presents an enhanced mathematical representation.  By reducing the number of time variables and proposing more clever time balance constraints, significant upturns can be obtained.  Three example problems are used to assess the improvements on the computational performance of the resulting MILP formulation.