A hierarchical layout design method based on rubber band potential-energy descending

Strip packing problems is one important sub-problem of the Cutting stock problems. Its application domains include sheet metal, ship making, wood, furniture, garment, shoes and glass. In this paper, a hierarchical layout design method based on rubber band potential-energy descending was proposed. The basic concept of the rubber band enclosing model was described in detail. We divided the layout process into three different stages: initial layout stage, rubber band enclosing stage and local adjustment stage. In different stages, the most efficient strategies were employed for further improving the layout solution. Computational results show that the proposed method performed better than the GLSHA algorithm for three out of nine instances in utilization.