Date of Award

3-1997

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

Dennis C. Dietz, PhD

Abstract

This thesis develops five analytical models to understand the current ground refueling process, to optimize the airfield configuration and to determine the refueling policy which maximizes throughput, the primary measure of airfield efficiency. This study models the airfield refueling process as a continuous time Markov process to adequately represent the inherent stochastic nature of the transitory ground refueling system and provide an analytical evaluation of various airfield configurations. Also, the study provides an optimal refueling policy to minimize the number of aircraft on the ground which in turn minimizes the average amount of time aircraft spend on the ground in a fifth model, a Markov decision process solved by a linear program. By accomplishing this, higher throughput rates can be achieved by allowing a higher aircraft arrival rate into the airfield.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GOR-ENS-97M-19

DTIC Accession Number

ADA324169

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