Bounding convex relaxations of process models from below by tractable black-box sampling

Several chemical engineering applications demand global optimization of nonconvex process models, including safety verification and determination of thermodynamic equilibria. Methods for determinisitic global optimization typically generate crucial bounding information by minimizing convex relaxations of the process model. However, gradients or subgradients of these convex relaxations may be unavailable in practice for several reasons, which …