Originally posted by: lxysjtu

Dear all,

I am developing a B&C to solve a network design problem. In the separation, I need to solve a lot of maximum flow problems to find a violated cut. But this is too time-consuming. So I tried a simpler strategy where I only added cut when an integer solution was found. 

With this strategy, the B&C was able to find a good incumbent very quickly. But it may spend a lot of time to verify if this incumbent is optimal. 

Attached please find one example of search tree.

My question is that is there any method to prune  nodes from the tree. 

Thanks,

Shaon

You can prune nodes from the search tree with the branch callback. But note that CPLEX already prunes nodes based on the incumbent's objective. So if you want to prune more nodes then you will have to use some other criteria.

Originally posted by: lxysjtu

Regarding "other criteria", would you please give some suggestions?  

I wouldn't know. Knowing such criteria requires intimate knowledge of the problem you are trying to solve.

Sometimes you can exploit symmetry to prune nodes, in case CPLEX does not pick up the symmetry in your model already.