A model-based approach and analysis for multi-period networks

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10957-012-0183-6

The aim of this contribution is to address a general class of network problems, very common in process systems engineering, where spoilage on arcs and storage in nodes are inevitable as time changes. Having a set of capacities, so-called horizon capacity which limits the total flow passing arcs over all periods, the min-cost flow problem in the discrete-time model with time-varying network parameters is investigated. While assuming a possibility of storage or and spoilage, we propose some approaches employing polyhedrals to obtain optimal solutions for a pre-specified planning horizon. Our methods describe some reformulations based on polyhedrals that lead to LP problems comprising a set of sparse subproblems with exceptional structures. Considering the sparsity and repeating structure of the polyhedrals, algorithmic approaches based on decomposition techniques of block-angular and block-staircase cases are proposed to handle the global problem aiming to reduce the computational resources required.