Design of once-through multistage flash process under the Generalized Disjunctive Programming framework

The aim of this paper is to present an optimization model for once-through multistage flash process. Detailed steady state model for MSF-OT was developed and provided a Generalized Disjunctive Programming (GDP) nonlinear model. The proposed mathematical formulation have been reformulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem and solved using GAMS software. The objective function of this work is based on minimizing the total annualized cost (TAC) of MSF-OT process with the key feature of determining the optimal number of stages. Primary results show the capabilities of our approach providing simultaneously the optimal values for the continuous and discrete variables, and offering to the decision-maker the best design depending on the purchased cost of the equipments.