Investigation on the net cascade using Ant Colony optimization algorithm

Abstract

In the present work, the analysis of the net cascades with recirculation has been investigated. Therefore, survey on performance of some configurations of the net cascade has been conducted. It was demonstrated that the lozenge net cascades with recycled flows to different layers indicate the same function. Also, it is found that they perform as well as their equivalent conventional matched abundance ratio cascade and corresponding matched abundance ratio net cascade. Moreover, based on the metaheuristic algorithms, the Ant Colony optimization for continuous domain is used to optimize the net cascade parameters. For this purpose, the code ACORNET is developed and the waste and the product concentrations of a target component and the separation power of single machine were selected as the fitness function main items. It has been revealed that the application of the algorithm to this problem guarantees finding the acceptable solution and from an evolutionary point of view the performance of it is superior.