Computational investigation of cutting techniques for integer programming

In this thesis, a cutting plane algorithm is combined with the Branch and Bound algorithm to improve the performance of the Branch and Bound algorithm. The cuts are generated from the integer problem's objective function. They are added to the integer problem to reduce a feasible area without removing the integer solution. Then the problem is solved by the Branch and Bound Algorithm. Two cutting techniques are proposed and studied; Bound Above and Bound Below. The Bound Above technique improves more than 60% of thirty-four generated test problems. The Bound Below technique has a better performance; it improves more than 76%. Additionally, the Bound Below technique is used to solve nine small real world test problems. The numbers of nodes and iterations for Branch and Bound algorithm used for reaching and optimal solutions are reduced for all of these test problems.