Title: Detailed scheduling distribution of real multi-product pipeline

Authors: Asma Berrichi; Wassila Abdellaoui; Djamel Bennacer; Fouad Maliki; Latefa Ghomri

Addresses: Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory Tlemcen (MELT), University of Abou Bekr Belkaid, Tlemcen, Algeria ' Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory Tlemcen (MELT), University of Abou Bekr Belkaid, Tlemcen, Algeria ' Mechanical Engineering, University of Abou Bekr Belkaid, Tlemcen, Algeria ' Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory Tlemcen (MELT), EPST, Tlemcen, Algeria ' Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory Tlemcen (MELT), University of Abou Bekr Belkaid, Tlemcen, Algeria

Abstract: We conducted an optimisation study on an Algerian multi-product pipeline that supplies market with fuels, through two fuel centres. The successive transport results under the diffusion effect, an interface between two products in contact, this interface is not marketable in any case and must be stored separately to the pure products. The number of interfaces depends mainly on the number of transported batches. Once the interface is at the end of the pipeline, in which the storage tanks reach a high level, if the pumping is interrupted, then the situation can cause fuel shortage on the market. The mixed integer linear programming 'MILP' formulation was able to respond to our problem and eliminate the high-level of mixture tanks constraint, by scheduling the multi-product pipeline, considering real operating conditions: Injection flow rate of each product, the products transport sequence, the imperative storage of the interface at the 2nd fuel centre, etc.

Keywords: multi-product pipeline; batches; interfaces; MILP formulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2021.119933

International Journal of Operational Research, 2021 Vol.42 No.4, pp.505 - 523

Received: 15 Mar 2019
Accepted: 09 Jun 2019

Published online: 04 Jan 2022 *

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