To reach the US Department of Energy's goal of replacing 30% of current petroleum consumption by biomass and its products by year 2030, various systems capable of harvesting, storing and transporting biomass efficiently, at a low cost, need to be designed. The transportation system of a cotton gin, which shares several key components with a biomass transportation system, was simulated using a discrete event simulation procedure, to determine the operating parameters under various management practices.
The cotton module transportation system, when operating under a FIFO management plan, was found to operate at 77% utilization factor, while the actual ginning process operated at 69%. Two greedy algorithm-based management policies were simulated, which increased the gin operational factor to 100%, but doing so required an increase in gin inventory level. A knapsack model, with travel times, was constructed and solved to obtain the lower bound for the transportation system. The significance of these operating parameters and their links to a biomass transportation system are presented.
Using the new management strategies, the utilization factor for the transportation system was increased to 99%. To achieve this improvement, the transportation manager must know where all modules are located and have the ability to dispatch a hauler to any location.