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Department oflndustrial & Systems Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Mid-Semester Examination- Spring 2014
Operations Research (IM41082)
Time: 2 Hrs (Attempt ALL the questions) Full Mark: 30

Note: State your assumptions clearly

Question 1 (5 Marks)
The Steel Company STEELCO needs to produce a new type of steel that will be created from a mixture
of various types of iron, alloy and steel. The new type of steel should have a chrome content of at least
1% but not more than 1.25% and should have silicon content of at least 3% but not more than 4%.
STEELCO has following materials for creating the new type of steel.

Amount Cost/kg Chrome% Silicon % per

available per 1<2 _kg
Iron A Unlimited 5 0.01 1.75
lronB Unlimited 7 7.00 17.00
Steel A Unlimited 2 0.05 0.02
Steel B Unlimited 2.5 0.00 0.05
Alloy A Unlimited 10 0.02 22.00
AlloyB Unlimited 12 0.00 31.00

STEELCO would like to make 1500 kg of new type of steel with minimum possible cost.
a) What are the decision variables?
b) What are the constraints?
c) Formulate the LP in normal and standard form with slack or surplus variables.

Question 2 (5 Marks)
Consider the following LP model.
Max. X 1 + 1.5X2
s.t. Using graphical method
a) Show the feasible region.
2X1 +2X2 ~5
b) What would be the optimal solution
2X1 +X2 ~4 c) What will happen if objective function changed to Max.
X 1 +2X2 ~4 Xl+X2
XpX2 ;:::: o

Question 3 (5 Marks)
Consider the following primal problem:
Max. 3X1 + 2X 2
s.t.
-X1 +2X2 ~4 a) Form the dual of this problem?
b) Solve any (Primal or Dual ) using
3X1 +2X2 ~14 Simplex in Tabular form .
X 1 -X2 ~3

XpX2 ;:::: o

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Question 4 (10 Marks)

The mathematical model of a linear programming problem, after introducing the slack variables is:

Maximize Z = 50a + 60b + 120c + OS1 + OS2

Subject to
2a + 4b + 6c + S1 = 160 ------- (1)
3a + 2b + 4c + S2 = 120 ------- (2)
and a, b, c, S1 and S2 all ~ 0.
In solving the problem by using simplex method the last but one table obtained is given below:

50 60 I20 0 0 Capacity
a b c Sl S2
''

1/3 2/3 I 1/6 0 80/3

5/3 .. ' -2/3 _Q_ -2/3 _ - I 40/3

1) Complete the above table by identifying the basic variables and Z row.
2) Complete the solution by further iteration (s) and obtain the values of a, b, and c and the optimal
profit Z.
3) Is there any alternative optimal solution for the problem? Justify your answer.
4) Write the dual of the above problem. Compute the optimal solution of the dual problem using the
optimal simplex table of the primal problem.
5) State the complementary slackness theorem. Construct the solution of the primal problem from the
dual solution using complementary slackness condition?
6) Find the shadow price of all the resources of the primal problem. What is the interpretation of these
shadow prices?
7) If the RHS value of the first constraint changes from 160 to 340, what will be the new value of the
objective function?
8) If the coefficient of b changes to 100 in the objective function, what will be the new optimal solution?
9) Develop the statement of problem from the data available.
10) If the slack variable S1 becomes negative slack and constraint (2) becomes a binding constraint what
changes would you recommend to the original system of equations? Rewrite the revised formulation.

Question 5 (5 Marks)

1) How do you determine the following conditions from the simples table: unboundedness, infeasibility,
alternate optima, and degeneracy?
2) What is the rationality behind the minimum ratio rule.
3) Why do we need artificial variables and what is the effect of them on solution space?
4) What is cycling in the context of the simplex method? Why does it occur?
5) While solving a problem using two-phase method; an artificial variable appears as a degenerate basic
variable in the final tableau of Phase I. Will you conclude that the problem is infeasible? Justify your
answer.

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