A1 Stowage is a program for generating optimal cargo stowage plans on Ro-Ro decks. The optimal stowage plan is the one that maximizes the utilization of payload capacity, subject to requirements and constraints.
The mathematical model is scientifically robust and innovative. It has been published in Journal of Marine & Engineering.
You can purchase the source code (under MIT, GPL, or Apache license) to be tailored to your application. Contact us to discuss the terms and conditions.
Below you can see the summary of key facts and the snapshots taken from the publication. The snapshots demonstrate the simulation results for a handy size passenger Ro-Ro ship of 14,700 GT with four decks and eight hoistable panels. The simulation was completed within 10 minutes. The boxplot below shows how long the simulations for this kind of vessel would tend to take, depending on the cargo distribution and amount.
Key-facts
- Implemented as a stand-alone application in C++ (the project can be open in Visual Studio 2022)
- Arbitrary number and configurations of decks, cargo types and numbers can be handled
- Optimization is quick (5 sec – 30 min) and can be performed right before departure by simply entering the number cargo types waiting on the parking lot
- Implemented constraints:
– Geometric (various cargo sizes, intricate deck area configurations etc.)
– Strength (max payload per deck, max stress)
– Location (no stowage on certain areas, deck classification by cargo types)
– Designated location of DG
– Stability constraints (min GM, transverse and longitudinal moments) - Optimization satisfies all constraints and maximizes the objective: max utilization of payload capacity. And if cargo types vary in associated profit and available cargo is in excess of payload capacity, the optimization will wisely select cargo to maximize the total profit.
- Optimization problem is formulated as 0-1 linear problem
- Deterministic solver solves the problem exactly. The snapshots below obtained by using the commercial solver GUROBI (version 7.02 with default settings).
