Computational Tools to Support Ethanol Pipeline Network Design Decisions

Gustavo Dias da Silva, Virgílio José Martins Ferreira Filho, Laura Bahiense

Gustavo Dias da Silva.
Production Engineering Program, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

DOI: 10.4236/ajor.2013.31001                

Abstract

This paper considers the pipeline network design problem (PND) in ethanol transportation, with a view to providing robust and efficient computational tools to assist decision makers in evaluating the technical and economic feasibility of ethanol pipeline network designs. Such tools must be able to address major design decisions and technical characteristics, and estimate network construction and operation costs to any time horizon. The specific context in which the study was conducted was the ethanol industry in Sao Paulo. Five instances were constructed using pseudo-real data to test the methodologies developed.

Keywords

Ethanol; Pipelines; Network Design; Mathematical Programming

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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