PACKING CIRCLES WITHIN CIRCULAR CONTAINERS: A NEW HEURISTIC ALGORITHM FOR THE BALANCE CONSTRAINTS CASE

• Main Authors: Washington Alves de Oliveira, Luiz Leduino de Salles Neto, Antonio Carlos Moretti, Ednei Felix Reis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Pesquisa Operacional
• Series: Pesquisa Operacional
• Subjects: packing problem; layout optimization problem; nonidentical circles; heuristic algorithm
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0101-74382016000200279&lng=en&tlng=en

ABSTRACT In this work we propose a heuristic algorithm for the layout optimization for disks installed in a rotating circular container. This is a unequal circle packing problem with additional balance constraints. It proved to be an NP-hard problem, which justifies heuristics methods for its resolution in larger instances. The main feature of our heuristic is based on the selection of the next circle to be placed inside the container according to the position of the system's center of mass. Our approach has been tested on a series of instances up to 55 circles and compared with the literature. Computational results show good performance in terms of solution quality and computational time for the proposed algorithm.