2.3.5 Blending and Refining
A number of LP applications deal with blending different input materials to produce
products that meet certain specifications while minimizing cost or maximizing profit.
The input materials could be ores,metalscraps, chemicals, or crude oils and the output
products could be metal ingots, paints, or gasoline of various grades. This section presents a (simplified) model for oil refining.The processstarts with distilling crude oil to
produce intermediate gasoline stocks and then blending these stocks to produce final
gasolines.The final products mustsatisfy certain quality specifications (such as octane
rating). In addition, distillation capacities and demand limits can directly affect the
level of production of the different grades of gasoline. One goal of the modeLis determine the optimal mix offinal products that will maximize an appropriate profit function. In some cases, the goal may be to minimize a cost function.