DYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION IN A DISCONTINUOUS WORLD

Many engineering tasks can be formulated as dynamic optimization or op en-loop optimal control problems, where we search a priori for the inp ut profiles to a dynamic system that optimize a given performance meas ure over a certain time period. Further, many systems of interest in t he chemical processing industries experience significant discontinuiti es during transients of interest in process design and operation. This paper discusses three classes of dynamic optimization problems with d iscontinuities: path-constrained problems, hybrid discrete/continuous problems, and mixed-integer dynamic optimization problems. In particul ar, progress toward a general numerical technology for the solution of large-scale discontinuous dynamic optimization problems is discussed.