<p> This dissertation examines the facility location problems in the presence of barrier regions and consists basically of four essays exploring new problems. Despite the fact that the facility location problems considering barriers to travel are more realistic than their unrestricted counterparts, research in the area is relatively limited. This is due to the computational complexity associated with them. </p> <p> The first essay analyzes the problem of locating a facility in a region in the presence of a probabilistic line barrier. The objective is to locate the facility such that the sum of the volume times distances between the facility and demand points is minimized. Some convexity results are presented and a solution algorithm is proposed. </p> <p> Another interrelated problem is locating a facility in a region where a fixed line barrier such as a borderline divides the region into two. The regions communicate with each other through a number of passage points located on the line barrier. A version of this problem with minisum objective has been studied in the literature where the locations of the passage points are known. The second essay considers a number of extensions to this problem and proposes an efficient solution methodology based on the Outer Approximation algorithm. </p> <p> The third essay discusses the problem of locating a rectangular barrier facility m an area where interactions among existing facilities are present. The problem has two objectives. The first objective is to minimize the interference of the barrier facility to the interactions among the existing facilities. The second objective is to find a center (minimax) location for the barrier facility. The problem is formulated as a bi-objective problem and a mixed integer program is proposed as a solution methodology. A Simulated Annealing algorithm is presented for an extension of the problem where expropriation of existing facilities is also possible. </p> <p> Finally, the last essay suggests a practical analog approach for facility location problems in the presence of barriers. The use of the analog for certain problems is justified through some analytical results and a number of problems that appeared in the literature are solved efficiently. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/18978 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Canbolat, Mustafa Serdal |
| Contributors | Wesolowsky, George O., Management Science/Systems |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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