The convex hull heuristic for nonlinear integer programming problems with linear constraints and application to quadratic 0-1 problems

The convex hull heuristic is a heuristic for mixed-integer programming problems with a nonlinear objective function and linear constraints. It is a matheuristic in two ways: it is based on the mathematical programming algorithm called simplicial decomposition, or SD (von Hohenbalken in Math Program 13:49-68, 1977), and at each iteration, one solves a mixed-integer programming problem with a linear objective function and the original constraints, and a continuous problem with a nonlinear objective function and a single linear constraint. Its purpose is to produce quickly feasible and often near optimal or optimal solutions for convex and nonconvex problems. It is usually multi-start. We have tested it on a number of hard quadratic 0-1 optimization problems and present numerical results for generalized quadratic assignment problems, cross-dock door assignment problems, quadratic assignment problems and quadratic knapsack problems. We compare solution quality and solution times with results from the literature, when possible.