Study On Optimization Of Containership Stowage Plan

Container stowage plan is a key step in container shipping. It mainly determines the location of containers on the containership when loading operation happens. Container stowage plan is based on the principle of security and economy and can help to make the loading and uploading sequence of containers. The quality of container stowage plan has a direct effect on ship security and efficiency of terminal loading and uploading operation. The study on container stowage plan can be applied in a wide engineering condition in modern container management modernization and container shipping.Container stowage plan optimization is a mufti-objectives combinatorial optimization with complex constraints. It's very difficult for one single model to solve all problems. This dissertation divides the problem into two sub-problems based on effort of studying the characteristic of stowage problem. Then this dissertation solves the two sub-problems in different ways to reduce the degree of the whole problem.The first step studies the problem of distributing the containers from container groups on the yard to the blocks on the ship, which is based on the pre-stowage plan and yard condition to optimize distribution and to improve the operation efficiency. Then this dissertation builds a linear integer programming model and develops a heuristic algorithm according to the problem characteristic and actual stowage principles. A numerical experimentation is carried out to testify the model and algorithm feasibility.The following problem will consider the characteristic of double 40-inch container crane which is a new topic. Studying on the model of double 40-inch container crane and the different conditions is carried out to make the preparation for the following study on the optimization of container stowage plan based on the 40-inch container crane.Based on the two previous parts this dissertation then studies the container and slot distribution optimization which distribute the different types of containers in the container group in the yard into the slot on the ship. The goal is to maximize the double 40-inch container crane operation and to optimize the weight distribution not with full constraint of pre-stowage plan. A mufti-objectives mathematic optimization model is built and simulated annealing algorithm is applied according to the problem characteristic. A numerical experimentation is carried out to testify the model and algorithm feasibility.Through a lot study on the stowage problem this dissertation makes a attempt to consider the factors of yard and equipment into the optimization model, which tries to make a breakthrough and seek a new way to the problem. They are also the two main innovation points of this dissertation. And the paper also divides the problem into two sub-problems to reduce the degree of the whole problem. And then the paper gives mathematic programming model for the both sub-problems and numerical algorithm and experimentation. So this dissertation is a valuable try in the related field.