Figure 1 is a flow diagram of the chemical process. The test problem was a hydrocarbon refrigeration process in which the feed stream (stream number 1 of Figure 1) is a vapor mixture of ethane, propane, and n-butane (subscripts e, p and b, respectively) at 200°F and 500 psia. The product stream (stream number 8 of Figure 1) is liquid at -20°F at some reduced pressure. The nonlinear objective function was the minimization of the cost of the work done by the recycle stream compressors. There were 34 bounded variables (both upper bound and lower bound) associated with the process, 12 linear equality constraints, 18 nonlinear equality constraints, and 3 linear inequality constraints (see PROBLEM). The generalized reduced gradient code of Abadie and Guigou reached the solution shown in Table 1 from the nonfeasible starting point shown in Table 2.
/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/a-nonlinear-programming-test-problem-Gm60rNRgVQ