Design stage optimization of an industrial low-density polyethylene tubular reactor for multiple objectives using NSGA-II and its jumping gene adaptations

Abstract

Design stage optimization of an industrial low-density polyethylene (LDPE) tubular reactor is carried out for two simultaneous objectives: maximization of monomer conversion and minimization of normalized side products (methyl, vinyl, and vinylidene groups), both at the reactor end, with end-point constraint on number-average molecular weight (M_n,f) in the product. An inequality constraint is also imposed on reactor temperature to avoid run-away condition in the tubular reactor. The binary-coded elitist non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) and its jumping gene (JG) adaptations are used to solve the optimization problem. Both the equality and inequality constraints are handled by penalty functions. Only sub-optimal solutions are obtained when the equality end-point constraint on M_n,f is imposed. But, correct global optimal solutions can be assembled from among the Pareto-optimal sets of several problems involving a softer constraint on M_n,f. A systematic approach of constrained-dominance principle for handling constraints is applied for the first time in the binary-coded NSGA-II-aJG and NSGA-II-JG, and its performance is compared to the penalty function approach. A three-objective optimization problem with the compression power (associated with the compression cost) as the third objective along with the aforementioned two objectives, is also studied. The results of three-objective optimization are compared with two different combinations of two-objective problems.