Vol.24, No.3, 2024, pp. 398–406
https://doi.org/10.69644/ivk-2024-03-0398

In the process of designing a new tank farm or reconstructing an old one, we often face the task of finding the optimal layout of hydrocarbon storage tanks. It is necessary to comply with both the customer's wishes and the requirements of normative documents regarding restrictions in the location of petroleum product storage facilities, and it must be correlated with the size of the site where the tanks are to be constructed. This results in an optimisation problem that can be solved in various ways. In this research, we shall consider two methods for solving such an NP-complete combinatorial optimisation problem: the knapsack problem and the bin-packing problem. For this purpose, we shall solve the discussed problem using both methods analytically, and then form programme algorithms for the solution based on the Python language. Let us compare both methods in real cases of tank placement and analyse their efficiency.

Keywords: vertical steel tanks, oil depot, design and reconstruction, combinatorial optimisation, knapsack problem, bin-packing problem, Python programming