An approach of simultaneous strategies with two novel techniques is proposed to improve the solution accuracy of chemical dynamic optimization problems. The first technique is to handle constraints on control variables based on the finite-element collocation so as to control the approximation error for discrete optimal problems, where a set of control constraints at element knots are integrated with the procedure for optimization leading to a significant gain in the accuracy of the simultaneous strategies. The second technique is to make the mesh refinement more feasible and reliable by introducing length constraints and guideline in designing appropriate element length boundaries, so that the proposed approach becomes more efficient in adjusting elements to track optimal control profile breakpoints and ensure accurate state and control profiles. Four classic benchmarks of dynamic optimization problems are used as illustrations, and the proposed approach is compared with literature reports. The research results reveal that the proposed approach is preferable in improving the solution accuracy of chemical dynamic optimization problem.
This study proposes an efficient indirect approach for general nonlinear dynamic optimization problems without path constraints. The approach incorporates the virtues both from indirect and direct methods: it solves the optimality conditions like the traditional indirect methods do, but uses a discretization technique inspired from direct methods. Compared with other indirect approaches, the proposed approach has two main advantages: (1) the discretized optimization problem only employs unconstrained nonlinear programming (NLP) algorithms such as BFGS (Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno), rather than constrained NLP algorithms, therefore the computational efficiency is increased; (2) the relationship between the number of the discretized time intervals and the integration error of the four-step Adams predictor-corrector algorithm is established, thus the minimal number of time intervals that under desired integration tolerance can be estimated. The classic batch reactor problem is tested and compared in detail with literature reports, and the results reveal the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Dealing with path constraints requires extra techniques, and will be studied in the second paper.
