Applications of Metaheuristics in Process Engineering

Metaheuristics exhibit desirable properties like simplicity, easy parallelizability and ready applicability to different types of optimization problems such as real parameter optimization, combinatorial optimization and mixed integer optimization. They are thus beginning to play a key role in different industrially important process engineering applications, among them the synthesis of heat and mass exchange equipment, synthesis of distillation columns and static and dynamic optimization of chemical and bioreactors.

This book explains cutting-edge research techniques in related computational intelligence domains and their applications in real-world process engineering. It will be of interest to industrial practitioners and research academics.

Jayaraman Valadi worked in the Chemical Engineering division of the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India, retiring as a Deputy Director in 2009. He then joined the Evolutionary Computing and Image Processing Group at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), University of Pune, first in the role of an Emeritus Scientist and then as a consultant. He is also a visiting professor at the Shiv Nadar University, Gautam Buddha Nagar, India. His research interests include computational intelligence, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics and chemical engineering.

Patrick Siarry is a Professor of Automatics and Informatics at the University of Paris-Est Créteil, where he leads the Image and Signal Processing team in the Laboratoire Images, Signaux et Systèmes Intelligents (LiSSi). He has considerable teaching and research experience in the areas of signal processing, control, artificial intelligence, operations research, and optimization. He presently serves as an Associate Editor of the journal Information Sciences and the journal Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence.