Date of Publication

12-2023

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Subject Categories

Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

College

Gokongwei College of Engineering

Department/Unit

Mechanical Engineering

Thesis Advisor

Aristotle T. Ubando

Defense Panel Chair

Laurence A. Gan Lim

Defense Panel Member

Gerardo L. Augusto
Ivan Henderson V. Gue

Abstract/Summary

Apart from relying on commercial passenger travel, airline operators recently have increased their reliance on revenue generated from air freight transport. Inspiring a resurgence and forecast of greater market share for aircraft specific to air freight. Air cargo freighters look at streamlining several workflow steps in the air cargo loading process to achieve competitive and cost-effective operations. One such task is the selection and loading of an aircraft with its designated payload as stakeholders are keen on visualizing the scope of this problem and understanding the trade-offs between economic objectives, commercial objectives, and design constraints. This is described as the Aircraft Weight and Balance problem, which is a deceptively complex problem that presents itself as a generalized assignment problem. This study presents the development of a fuzzy linear programming model as a decision support tool for air cargo operations in the selection and placement of payload for an optimally transported freight. In contrast with previous studies, which had only considered one or two objectives for optimization, the proposed fuzzy linear programming model allows to maximize the payload, maximize the priority score of the selected cargo, and minimize the total operational cost score related to the cargo. The study considers a baseline case study compared against 3 situational analysis cases where modifications have been introduced onto the model by changing priority scores and additional selection constraints to replicate real-world scenarios, in these case studies the FMILP model solution is compared with singular optimization models and the results show pareto-optimal solutions that effectively provide a solution meeting the objectives and constraints within a reasonable solver run-time. The solutions provided by the FMILP model, when compared against the situational cases show that it is an effective tool for stakeholders to visualize the constraints of the operations and identify improvement points in considering business goals and aircraft regulatory and design constraints.

Abstract Format

html

Language

English

Format

Electronic

Keywords

Payloads (Aerospace engineering); Decision support systems

Upload Full Text

wf_yes

Embargo Period

12-6-2026

Download

Available for download on Sunday, December 06, 2026

Share

COinS