Global optimization for large‐scale water network synthesis based on dynamic partition and adaptive bound tightening

Abstract The synthesis of large‐scale integrated water networks is typically formulated as nonconvex mixed‐integer quadratic constrained programming (MIQCP) or QCP problems. With the complexity arising from bilinear terms in modeling mass flows of contaminants and binary variables representing the presence of units or streams, numerous local optima exist, thus presenting a significant optimization challenge. This study introduces a deterministic global optimization algorithm based on mixed‐integer programming (MIP) to tackle such problems. The approach involves dynamically strengthening the relaxed problems to converge towards the original problems. A simultaneous partition strategy is proposed combining locally uniform division with dynamic partitioned variables choosing. Furthermore, several adaptive bound contraction schemes are introduced to efficiently manage the size of the relaxed problems, assisting in accelerating the solution process. The algorithm's effectiveness and robustness are demonstrated with a large test set, showing superior performance compared to commercial solvers specifically on MIQCP problems.