Biofuel refinery location and supply chain planning under traffic congestion

This research focuses on planning biofuel refinery locations where the total system cost for refinery investment, feedstock and product transportation and public travel is minimized. Shipment routing of both feedstock and product in the biofuel supply chain and the resulting traffic congestion impact are incorporated into the model to decide optimal locations of biofuel refineries. A Lagrangian relaxation based heuristic algorithm is introduced to obtain near-optimum feasible solutions efficiently. To further improve optimality, a branch-and-bound framework (with linear programming relaxation and Lagrangian relaxation bounding procedures) is developed. Numerical experiments with several testing examples demonstrate that the proposed algorithms solve the problem effectively. An empirical Illinois case study and a series of sensitivity analyses are conducted to show the effects of highway congestion on refinery location design and total system costs.

• Record URL:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V99-506H0HN-1/2/2c86a216f8cc63b859cb251b176bea1f
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/01912615
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract reprinted with permission from Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Bai, Yun
  • Hwang, Taesung
  • Kang, Seungmo
  • Ouyang, Yanfeng
• Publication Date: 2011-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Bibliography; Figures; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 162-175
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Part B: Methodological
  • Volume: 45
  • Issue Number: 1
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0191-2615
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01912615

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Algorithms; Biomass fuels; Branch and bound algorithms; Case studies; Freight service; Industrial location; Industrial plants; Linear programming; Optimization; Planning by facility or land use; Supply chain management; Traffic congestion; Traffic models
• Uncontrolled Terms: Cost minimization; Lagrangian relaxation approach
• Geographic Terms: Illinois
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01324008
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, ATRI
• Created Date: Dec 29 2010 11:34AM