An Example of the Application of Nonlinear Programming to Chemical-Process Optimization

This paper presents a realistic chemical-process optimization problem in detail, and notes the fact of its equivalence to the general nonlinear programming problem. The eight equality constraints that arise are handled by algebraic substitution, and the resulting four-variable problem is solved by a modified form of the Davidon-Fletcher-Powell algorithm. Details of the method are presented (including a FORTRAN computer program), and results of two typical cases are summarized.