Cascade equilibrium stage relaxation method by introducing equilibrium efficiency parameter

Optimizing multistage processes,such as distillation or absorption,is a complex mixed-integer nonlinear programming(MINLP)problem.Relaxing integer into continuous variables and solving the easier nonlinear programming(NLP)problem is an optimization idea for the multistage process.In this article,we propose a relaxation method based on the efficiency parameter.When the efficiency parameter is 1or 0,the proposed model is equivalent to the complete existence or inexistence of the equilibrium stage.And non-integer efficiency represents partial existence.A multi-component absorption case shows a natural penalty for non-integer efficiency,which can assist the efficiency parameter converging to 0 or 1.However,its penalty is weaker than the existing relaxation models,such as the bypass efficiency model.In a simple distillation case,we show that this property can weaken the nonconvexity of the optimization problem and increase the probability of obtaining better optimization results.