Industrial Distribution System Simulation for Optimal Water Resource Assignment Using Probabilistic Tabu Search

Water of almost any quality has value so all operators need to learn how to use less, recycle more and to keep it as clean as possible. In many cases, the mineral industry, as a significant water user and wastewater producer, has the capacity to substitute poorer quality water for mining and mineral processing. Complex optimization problems and their challenges have been considered by the researchers around the world over several past years. Tabu search (TS) is a powerful searching algorithm based on principles of intelligent search. We propose in this work a probabilistic improvement to the selection procedure of TS. In this article, two methods are presented: Rank Based Probabilistic Tabu Search (RBPTS) and Fitness Based Probabilistic Tabu Search (FBPTS). Finally, we try to find optimal water resource assignment for an industrial copper complex distribution system. Anyhow, this is an applicable case study in industry.