Preface

This book is addressed to students, researchers, and industry professionals concern-

ing to multiple domains of engineering and technology. It covers the fundamentals,
classical and advanced optimization topics with a number of examples and case
studies that are beneficial to the personnel of different disciplines to gain knowledge
and apply to the problems encountered in their domains. General readers of initial
chapters that cover classical optimization topics are expected to have familiarity
with the fundamentals of mathematics and calculus. Readers of lateral chapters of
advanced optimization topics are expected to have familiarity with the fundamentals
of optimization along with their basic domain knowledge in engineering and
science.
Optimization is of great interest and it has widespread applications in engineer-
ing, science, and business. It has become a major technology contributor to the
growth of the industry. It is extensively used in solving a wide variety of problems
in design, operation, and analysis of engineering and technological processes. The
initial chapters of this book emphasize various classical methods of optimization
and their applications. This book mainly focuses on evolutionary, stochastic, and
artificial intelligence optimization algorithms with a special emphasis on their
design, analysis, and implementation to solve complex optimization problems
and includes a number of real applications concerning chemical, biochemical,
pharmaceutical, and environmental engineering processes. Formulation, design,
and implementation of various advanced optimization strategies to solve a wide
variety of base case and real engineering problems make this book beneficial to
researchers working in multiple domains.
Chapter 1 of this book provides motivation for optimization with the presentation
of basic features of optimization along with its scope, examples of applications, and
essential components. Further in this chapter, the basic concepts of optimization are
described in terms of functions, behavior of functions, and maxima and minima of
functions. This chapter also deals with the region of search within the constraints,
classification of problems in optimization, general solution procedure, and the
obstacles of optimization. Chapter 2 discusses classical analytical methods of
optimization. The classical optimization techniques are analytical in nature and
make use of differential calculus to solve the problems involving continuous
differentiable functions. These techniques with necessary and sufficient conditions
are employed to find the optimum of unconstrained single variable functions and
multivariable functions with equality and inequality constraints.
Chapter 3 elaborates numerical search methods for unconstrained optimization
problems. The classical analytical methods based on necessary conditions with their
analytical derivatives can yield exact solution for functions that have no complex
form of expressions. These analytical methods are usually difficult to apply for
nonlinear functions for which the analytical derivatives are hard to compute and
for functions involving more variables. Most algorithms of unconstrained and
xvii
xviii Preface

constrained optimization make use of numerical search techniques to locate the min-
imum (maximum) of single variable and multivariable functions. These numerical
search methods find the optimum by using the function f(x) and sometimes deriva-
tive values of f(x) at successive trial points of x. Chapter 3 discusses various gradient
and direct search methods that are used to solve single variable and multivariable
optimization problems. In this chapter, various one-dimensional gradient search
methods, polynomial approximation methods, multivariable direct search methods,
and multivariable gradient search methods with examples are discussed.
Chapter 4 describes various stochastic and evolutionary optimization algorithms.
Classical optimization methods fail to solve problems that pose difficulties concern-
ing to dimensionality, differentiability, multimodality, nonlinearity in objective
function and constraints, and problems that have many local optima. There has
been a rapidly growing interest in advanced optimization algorithms over the last
decade. Stochastic and evolutionary optimization methods are increasingly used
to solve challenging optimization problems. These methods are typically inspired
by some phenomena from nature and they are robust. These methods are capable
of locating global optimum of multimodal functions and they have flexibility with
ease of operation. These algorithms do not require any gradient information
and are even suitable to solve discrete optimization problems. These methods are
extensively used in the analysis, design, and operation of systems that are highly
nonlinear, high dimensional, and noisy or for solving problems that are not easily
solved by classical deterministic methods of optimization. Various stochastic and
global optimization methods are now becoming industry standard. Chapter 4 mainly
focuses on evolutionary and stochastic optimization algorithms such as genetic
algorithm, simulated annealing, differential evolution, ant colony optimization,
tabu search, particle swarm optimization, artificial bee colony algorithm, and cuckoo
search algorithm. In Chapter 4, these algorithms are described in detail with flow
schemes and implementation procedures. Implementation of stochastic global
optimization methods to base case problems involving continuous and discrete
numerical functions gives intriguing insight about the efficacy of these methods
for their further implementation to real engineering applications. Chapter 5 provides
different base case applications and performance evaluation of various stochastic
global optimization methods.
Chapter 6 discusses application of stochastic evolutionary optimization tech-
niques to chemical processes. The chemical industry is experiencing significant
changes because of global market competition, strict bounds on product specifica-
tions, pricing pressures, and environmental issues. Optimization is the most
important approach that addresses the performance issues related to several areas
of chemical process engineering including process design, process development,
process modeling, process identification, process control, and real-time process
operation. Optimization is also used in process synthesis, experimental design,
planning, scheduling, distribution, and integration of process operations. Most of
the chemical engineering problems exhibit highly nonlinear dynamics and often
present nonconvexity, discontinuity, and multimodality. The classical deterministic
 Preface xix

optimization methods are not effective in solving optimization problems of complex

chemical processes and often require high computational time. Stochastic
evolutionary optimization methods are robust numerical techniques and are widely
used to solve complex chemical engineering problems that are not easily solved by
classical deterministic methods of optimization. Chapter 6 deals with various real
applications of stochastic and evolutionary optimization strategies to different
chemical processes that are highly nonlinear and high dimensional. In this chapter,
different stochastic optimization-based multistage dynamic optimization, multiloop
controller tuning, and nonlinear model predictive control strategies are designed and
applied to complex and high-dimensional processes such as semibatch copoly-
merization reactors and reactive distillation columns.
Chapter 7 concentrates on application of stochastic evolutionary optimization
techniques to biochemical processes. Bioprocess technology plays a vital role in
delivering innovative and sustainable products and processes to fulfill the needs of
the society. In the present situation of increasing energy demand, depleting natural
sources, and ever-demanding environmental awareness, bioprocesses occupy a
unique position in converting variety of resources into useful products. Modeling
and optimization techniques are increasingly used to understand and improve the
cellular-based processes. The advantages of these techniques include the reduction
of excessive experimentation, facilitating the most informative experiments,
providing strategies to optimize and automate the processes and reducing cost and
time in devising operational strategies. The model-based bioprocess optimization
provides a quantitative and systematic framework to maximize process profitability,
safety, and reliability. Chapter 7 mainly focuses on application of stochastic evolu-
tionary optimization techniques for modeling and optimization of biotechnological
processes. In this chapter, various mathematical, empirical, and artificial neural
network modelebased stochastic and evolutionary optimization strategies are
designed and applied for optimization of different biotechnical processes such as
Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells production, lipopeptide, and rhamnolipid
biosurfactant processes.
Chapter 8 presents application of evolutionary and artificial intelligenceebased
optimization techniques to pharmaceutical processes. Design, modeling, and
optimization studies can lead to considerable benefits in pharmaceutical processes
in terms of improvement in productivity and product quality as well as reduction
in energy consumption and environmental pollution. In this chapter, different
strategies are derived by combining artificial neural networks, radial basis function
networks, and statistical response surface models with differential evolution,
nonsorting differential evolution, and nonsorting genetic algorithms, and these
strategies are applied for simultaneous optimization of pharmaceutical product
formulation, multiobjective Pareto optimization of a pharmaceutical product
formulation, and multiobjective optimization of cytotoxic potency of marine macro-
algae on human carcinoma cell lines. Chapter 9 focuses on application of stochastic
evolutionary optimization techniques to environmental processes. Modeling and
optimization studies can lead to considerable benefits to environmental engineering
xx Preface

systems in terms of efficiency improvement, energy reduction, and pollution control.

A variety of optimization approaches are used for the solution of environmental
problems in the areas of air pollution, solid, liquid, and industrial waste management,
and energy management. This chapter mainly focuses on application of stochastic and
evolutionary optimization techniques to environmental processes concerning to
industry wastewater treatment. Various process model and artificial intelligence
modelebased strategies involving stochastic optimization algorithms such as ant
colony optimization and tabu search are derived and applied for modeling and
optimization of different wastewater treatment processes. Chapter 10 given at the
end of the book represents the conclusions section. This chapter summarizes the
essence of the book and its benefit to the readers.
Many references with a variety of classical and advanced optimization problem
titles are included at the end of each chapter of this book. These references will be
immensely useful to the readers to advance their general knowledge and domain
knowledge in the field of optimization.