Mobile Chipper Scheduling in the Production of Fuel Chips

Abstract

Due to economic and environmental factors, boiler houses are forced to switch to wood fuel, which is very popular in the modern world. The most practical way to supply them with wood fuel is to mobilize mobile chippers that can move between different boiler houses and save money on additional chipping equipment. This paper seeks to build a mathematical model to optimize the movement of a mobile chipper between multiple boiler houses and its operation during the heating season. The model was designed for long-term planning, and it relies on a simplex algorithm. It considers three crucial parameters: machine capacity, feedstock amount, and traveled distance, and is suitable for schedule modeling purposes in the presence of fewer than 12 nodes. The number of nodes can be higher after a heuristic rule is applied. The proposal can be help schedule the biomass feedstock development at the regional level and switch to the local types of fuel. In addition, it will reduce the cost of thermal energy and increase the volume of wood waste chipped.