Course abstract

The objective of this course is to introduce optimization techniques to engineering students, with an emphasis on problems arising in Chemical Engineering applications. The course includes both linear and nonlinear programming problems. The first portion of the course introduces the basic concepts in optimization and how to obtain a mathematical representation of the optimization problem. The second portion of the course describes different solution techniques that can be used to actually solve such problems. Finally, a set of software tools for the solution of optimization problems are also discussed. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to understand the basic theoretical principles in optimization, formulate the optimization problem, and choose appropriate method/solver for solution of the optimization problem