A transport company has two types of trucks, Type A and Type B.

Type A has a refrigerated capacity of 20 m 3 and a non-refrigerated capacity of 40 m 3 while Type B has the same overall volume with equal sections for refrigerated and nonrefrigerated stock. A grocer needs to hire trucks for the transport of 3,000 m 3 of refrigerated stock and 4,000 m 3 of non-refrigerated stock. The cost per kilometer of a Type A is $30, and $40 for Type B. How many trucks of each type should the grocer rent to achieve the minimum total cost?

1 Choose the unknowns.

x = Type A trucks y = Type B trucks

2 Write the objective function .

f(x,y) = 30x + 40y

3 Write the constraints as a system of inequalities .

Total

Refrigerated

20

30

3 000

Non-refrigerated

40

30

4 000

20x + 30y 3 000 40x + 30y 4 000 x 0 y 0

A school is preparing a trip for 400 students. The company who is providing the transportation has 10 buses of 50 seats each and 8 buses of 40 seats, but only has 9 drivers available. The rental cost for a large bus is $800 and $600 for the small bus. Calculate how many buses of each type should be used for the trip for the least possible cost.

1 Choose the unknowns.

x = small buses

y = big buses

2 Write the objective function .

f(x, y) = 600x + 800y

3 Write the constraints as a system of inequalities .

40x + 50y 400

x + y 9

x 0

y 0

A farmer has 10 acres to plant in wheat and rye. He has to plant at least 7 acres. However, he has only $1200 to spend and each acre of wheat costs $200 to plant and each acre of rye costs $100 to plant. Moreover, the farmer has to get the planting done in 12 hours and it takes an hour to plant an acre of wheat and 2 hours to plant an acre of rye. If the profit is $500 per acre of wheat and $300 per acre of rye how many acres of each should be planted to maximize profits? Steps 0. Read the whole problem. 1. Define your unknowns. 2. Express the objective function and the constraints. 3. Graph the constraints. 4. Find the corner points to the region of feasible solutions. 5. Evaluate the objective function at all the feasible corner points. 1. Define your unknowns In this case the question is how many acres of wheat and how many acres of rye should be planted. Let x = the number of acres of wheat and y = the number of acres of rye. 2. Express the objective and the constraints. First, the objective. The object is to maximize profits. Each acre of wheat brings in $500 and each acre of rye brings in $300. Profit = 500x + 300y After getting the unknowns defined and the objective expressed, everything else is a constraint. The first constraint is the acreage constraint. The farmer has only 10 acres to plant. So the total number of acres has to be less than or equal to 10. There is another acreage constraint. The farmer has to plant at least 7 acres. The next constraint is the cost constraint. The farmer has only $1200 to spend on the planting. Finally there is the time constraint. The planting has to be done in 12 hours. So the constraints are expressed as

and of course the implied constraints

A gold processor has two sources of gold ore, source A and source B. In order to keep his plant running, at least three tons of ore must be processed each day. Ore from source A costs $20 per ton to process, and ore from source B costs $10 per ton to process. Costs must be kept to less than $80 per day. Moreover, Federal Regulations require that the amount of ore from source B cannot exceed twice the amount of ore from source A. If ore from source A yields 2 oz. of gold per ton, and ore from source B yields 3 oz. of gold per ton, how many tons of ore from both sources must be processed each day to maximize the amount of gold extracted subject to the above constraints? Steps 0. Read the whole problem. 1. Define your unknowns. 2. Express the objective function and the constraints. 3. Graph the constraints. 4. Find the cornerpoints to the region of feasible solutions. 5. Evaluate the objective function at all the feasible corner points. In this case they are looking for the number of tons of ore from the two sources which should be processed each day to maximize the amount of gold extracted. Step 1. Define the unknowns Let x = the number of tons from source A and y = the number of tons from source B Step 2. Express the objective and the constriants. The objective is to maximize the amount of the gold yield. Since each ton of ore from source A yields 2oz. of gold and each ton of ore from source B yields 3oz. of gold, the amount of gold recovered will be 2x + 3y After getting the unknowns and the objective out of the way, everything else in the problem is a constraint. The constraints are the processing cost federal regulations Of course there are also the implied constraints We are not going to process an negative number of tons of ore.

A calculator company produces a scientific calculator and a graphing calculator. Long-term projections indicate an expected demand of at least 100 scientific and 80 graphing calculators each day. Because of limitations on production capacity, no more than 200scientific and 170 graphing calculators can be made daily. To satisfy a shipping contract, a total of at least 200 calculators much be shipped each day. If each scientific calculator sold results in a $2 loss, but each graphing calculator produces a $5 profit, how many of each type should be made daily to maximize net profits? The question asks for the optimal number of calculators, so my variables will stand for that:

x: number of scientific calculators produced y: number of graphing calculators produced

Since they can't produce negative numbers of calculators, I have the two constraints, x > 0 andy > 0. But in this case, I can ignore these constraints, because I already have that x > 100 andy > 80. The exercise also gives maximums: x < 200 and y < 170. The minimum shipping requirement gives me x + y > 200; in other words, y > x + 200. The revenue relation will be my optimization equation: R = 2x + 5y. So the entire system is:

R = 2x + 5y, subject to: 100 < x < 200 80 < y < 170 y > x + 200