A Comparative Study of Exact Algorithms for the Two Dimensional Strip Packing Problem

Abstract

In this paper we consider a two dimensional strip packing problem. The problem consists of packing a set of rectangular items in one strip of width W and infinite height. They must be packed without overlapping, parallel to the edge of the strip and we assume that the items are oriented, i.e. they cannot be rotated. To solve this problem, we use three exact methods: a branch and bound method, a dichotomous algorithm and a branch and price method. The three methods were carried out and compared on literature instances.