Bayer digestion maintenance optimisation with lazy constraints and Benders decomposition

This paper describes a maintenance scheduling model for digester banks. Digester banks are network-connected assets that lie on the critical path of the Bayer process, a chemical refinement process that converts bauxite ore into alumina. The banks require different maintenance activities at differen...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Spiers, Sandy, Bui, Hoa, Loxton, Ryan, Mansour, Moussa, Hollins, Kylie, Francis, Richard, Martindale, Christopher, Pimpale, Yogesh
Format: Journal Article
Published: 2024
Online Access:http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/IC180100030
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/96004
_version_ 1848766070424338432
author Spiers, Sandy
Bui, Hoa
Loxton, Ryan
Mansour, Moussa
Hollins, Kylie
Francis, Richard
Martindale, Christopher
Pimpale, Yogesh
author_facet Spiers, Sandy
Bui, Hoa
Loxton, Ryan
Mansour, Moussa
Hollins, Kylie
Francis, Richard
Martindale, Christopher
Pimpale, Yogesh
author_sort Spiers, Sandy
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper describes a maintenance scheduling model for digester banks. Digester banks are network-connected assets that lie on the critical path of the Bayer process, a chemical refinement process that converts bauxite ore into alumina. The banks require different maintenance activities at different due times. Furthermore, the maintenance schedule is subject to production-related constraints and resource limitations. Given the complexity of scheduling maintenance for large fleets of digester banks, a continuous-time, mixed-integer linear program is formulated to find the cost-minimising maintenance schedule that satisfies all required constraints. A solution approach that employs lazy constraints and Benders decomposition is proposed to solve the model. Unlike generic implementations of Benders decomposition, we show that the subproblems can be solved explicitly using a specialist algorithm. We solve the scheduling model for realistic scenarios involving two Bayer refineries based in Western Australia.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T11:45:18Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-96004
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:45:18Z
publishDate 2024
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-960042024-11-07T04:48:34Z Bayer digestion maintenance optimisation with lazy constraints and Benders decomposition Spiers, Sandy Bui, Hoa Loxton, Ryan Mansour, Moussa Hollins, Kylie Francis, Richard Martindale, Christopher Pimpale, Yogesh This paper describes a maintenance scheduling model for digester banks. Digester banks are network-connected assets that lie on the critical path of the Bayer process, a chemical refinement process that converts bauxite ore into alumina. The banks require different maintenance activities at different due times. Furthermore, the maintenance schedule is subject to production-related constraints and resource limitations. Given the complexity of scheduling maintenance for large fleets of digester banks, a continuous-time, mixed-integer linear program is formulated to find the cost-minimising maintenance schedule that satisfies all required constraints. A solution approach that employs lazy constraints and Benders decomposition is proposed to solve the model. Unlike generic implementations of Benders decomposition, we show that the subproblems can be solved explicitly using a specialist algorithm. We solve the scheduling model for realistic scenarios involving two Bayer refineries based in Western Australia. 2024 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/96004 10.1007/s10479-023-05561-6 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/IC180100030 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ fulltext
spellingShingle Spiers, Sandy
Bui, Hoa
Loxton, Ryan
Mansour, Moussa
Hollins, Kylie
Francis, Richard
Martindale, Christopher
Pimpale, Yogesh
Bayer digestion maintenance optimisation with lazy constraints and Benders decomposition
title Bayer digestion maintenance optimisation with lazy constraints and Benders decomposition
title_full Bayer digestion maintenance optimisation with lazy constraints and Benders decomposition
title_fullStr Bayer digestion maintenance optimisation with lazy constraints and Benders decomposition
title_full_unstemmed Bayer digestion maintenance optimisation with lazy constraints and Benders decomposition
title_short Bayer digestion maintenance optimisation with lazy constraints and Benders decomposition
title_sort bayer digestion maintenance optimisation with lazy constraints and benders decomposition
url http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/IC180100030
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/96004