Résumé (EN)

Determining a minimum cost network designed in such a way as to meet a given set of specifications is a fundamental class of problems that arise in a wide variety of contexts of applications, such as transportation science, telecommunication network engineering, distribution systems, energy networks, and water distribution networks. The chapter discusses two important problems arising in the area of distributed telecommunication networks: (1) network synthesis under non-simultaneous single- commodity or multi-commodity flow requirements and (2) determining an optimal investment policy for meeting increasing multi-commodity flow requirements over a given time period. The importance of the latter problem stems from the fact that most optimum network design problems are essentially dynamic in nature in the sense that the time factor should be explicitly taken into account. The chapter discusses how the most practically applicable solution methods are related to the work on static models.