Use of Mathematical Programming Methods for Complex Systems

Although mathematical programming techniques can be applied to solve certain (type A) problems, they cannot be used to solve complex (type B) problems directly. Instead they can be used to generate alternative solutions that can then be evaluated by the designer and modified according to judgment an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of water resources planning and management 1992-05, Vol.118 (3), p.281-294
Main Authors: Uber, James G, Brill, E. Downey, Pfeffer, John T
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Design engineering
Errors
Mathematical models
Optimization
Plant design
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Summary:Although mathematical programming techniques can be applied to solve certain (type A) problems, they cannot be used to solve complex (type B) problems directly. Instead they can be used to generate alternative solutions that can then be evaluated by the designer and modified according to judgment and intuition. A wastewater-treatment plant design context is used to illustrate that, although a minimum-cost model may produce an unsatisfactory design, other model formulations can be used to generate good alternatives. In particular, two model formulations are presented based on recent results in robust optimal design and in modeling-to-generate-alternatives (MGA) techniques. It is argued that the alternative designs generated by these techniques may serve as starting points in an interactive design process, where the engineer uses trial and error to modify solutions, and create new ones, based on modeled and unmodeled issues.
ISSN:0733-9496
1943-5452
DOI:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9496(1992)118:3(281)