Heuristic algorithms for the robust PNS problem

Abstract

In this paper we study the robust PNS problem, which is the extension of the structural PNS problem used to model process network synthesis. This problem is NP-hard thus a heuristic algorithm can be very useful for large instances, where we do not have enough time for an exponential time algorithm, presenting a surely optimal solution, or they can be used to fasten branch and bound based algorithms. We present new heuristic algorithms for the solution of the problem which are extensions of the heuristic algorithms used to solve the classical structural PNS problem. The algorithms are analyzed empirically, where we compare the efficiency on randomly generated inputs.