2001 MCM A: Choosing a Bicycle Wheel

Cyclists have different types of wheels they can use on their bicycles. The two basic types of wheels are those constructed using wire spokes and those constructed of a solid disk (see Figure 1) The spoked wheels are lighter, but the solid wheels are more aerodynamic. A solid wheel is never used on the front for a road race but can be used on the rear of the bike.

Professional cyclists look at a racecourse and make an educated guess as to what kind of wheels should be used. The decision is based on the number and steepness of the hills, the weather, wind speed, the competition, and other considerations. The director sportif of your favorite team would like to have a better system in place and has asked your team for information to help determine what kind of wheel should be used for a given course.

Figure 1: A solid wheel is shown on the left and a spoked wheel is shown on the right.

The director sportif needs specific information to help make a decision and has asked your team to accomplish the tasks listed below. For each of the tasks assume that the same spoked wheel will always be used on the front but there is a choice of wheels for the rear.

· Task 1. Provide a table giving the wind speed at which the power required for a solid rear wheel is less than for a spoked rear wheel. The table should include the wind speeds for different road grades starting from zero percent to ten percent in one percent increments. (Road grade is defined to be the ratio of the total rise of a hill divided by the length of the road. If the hill is viewed as a triangle, the grade is the sine of the angle at the bottom of the hill.) A rider starts at the bottom of the hill at a speed of 45 kph, and the deceleration of the rider is proportional to the road grade. A rider will lose about 8 kph for a five percent grade over 100 meters.

· Task 2. Provide an example of how the table could be used for a specific time trial course.

· Task 3. Determine if the table is an adequate means for deciding on the wheel configuration and offer other suggestions as to how to make this decision.

2001 MCM B: Escaping a Hurricane's Wrath (An Ill Wind...)

Evacuating the coast of South Carolina ahead of the predicted landfall of Hurricane Floyd in 1999 led to a monumental traffic jam. Traffic slowed to a standstill on Interstate I-26, which is the principal route going inland from Charleston to the relatively safe haven of Columbia in the center of the state. What is normally an easy two-hour drive took up to 18 hours to complete. Many cars simply ran out of gas along the way. Fortunately, Floyd turned north and spared the state this time, but the public outcry is forcing state officials to find ways to avoid a repeat of this traffic nightmare.

The principal proposal put forth to deal with this problem is the reversal of traffic on I-26, so that both sides, including the coastal-bound lanes, have traffic headed inland from Charleston to Columbia. Plans to carry this out have been prepared (and posted on the Web) by the South Carolina Emergency Preparedness Division. Traffic reversal on principal roads leading inland from Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head is also planned.

A simplified map of South Carolina is shown. Charleston has approximately 500,000 people, Myrtle Beach has about 200,000 people, and another 250,000 people are spread out along the rest of the coastal strip. (More accurate data, if sought, are widely available.)

The interstates have two lanes of traffic in each direction except in the metropolitan areas where they have three. Columbia, another metro area of around 500,000 people, does not have sufficient hotel space to accommodate the evacuees (including some coming from farther north by other routes), so some traffic continues outbound on I-26 towards Spartanburg; on I-77 north to Charlotte; and on I-20 east to Atlanta. In 1999, traffic leaving Columbia going northwest was moving only very slowly. Construct a model for the problem to investigate what strategies may reduce the congestion observed in 1999. Here are the questions that need to be addressed:

1. Under what conditions does the plan for turning the two coastal-bound lanes of I-26 into two lanes of Columbia-bound traffic, essentially turning the entire I-26 into one-way traffic, significantly improve evacuation traffic flow?

2. In 1999, the simultaneous evacuation of the state's entire coastal region was ordered. Would the evacuation traffic flow improve under an alternative strategy that staggers the evacuation, perhaps county-by-county over some time period consistent with the pattern of how hurricanes affect the coast?

3. Several smaller highways besides I-26 extend inland from the coast. Under what conditions would it improve evacuation flow to turn around traffic on these?

4. What effect would it have on evacuation flow to establish more temporary shelters in Columbia, to reduce the traffic leaving Columbia?

5. In 1999, many families leaving the coast brought along their boats, campers, and motor homes. Many drove all of their cars. Under what conditions should there be restrictions on vehicle types or numbers of vehicles brought in order to guarantee timely evacuation?

6. It has been suggested that in 1999 some of the coastal residents of Georgia and Florida, who were fleeing the earlier predicted landfalls of Hurricane Floyd to the south, came up I-95 and compounded the traffic problems. How big an impact can they have on the evacuation traffic flow? Clearly identify what measures of performance are used to compare strategies. Required: Prepare a short newspaper article, not to exceed two pages, explaining the results and conclusions of your study to the public.

Clearly identify what measures of performance are used to compare strategies.

Required: Prepare a short newspaper article, not to exceed two pages, explaining the results and conclusions of your study to the public.

2002 MCM A: Wind and Waterspray

An ornamental fountain in a large open plaza surrounded by buildings squirts water high into the air. On gusty days, the wind blows spray from the fountain onto passersby. The water-flow from the fountain is controlled by a mechanism linked to an anemometer (which measures wind speed and direction) located on top of an adjacent building. The objective of this control is to provide passersby with an acceptable balance between an attractive spectacle and a soaking: The harder the wind blows, the lower the water volume and height to which the water is squirted, hence the less spray falls outside the pool area.

Your task is to devise an algorithm which uses data provided by the anemometer to adjust the water-flow from the fountain as the wind conditions change.

2002 MCM B: Airline Overbooking

You're all packed and ready to go on a trip to visit your best friend in New York City. After you check in at the ticket counter, the airline clerk announces that your flight has been overbooked. Passengers need to check in immediately to determine if they still have a seat.

Historically, airlines know that only a certain percentage of passengers who have made reservations on a particular flight will actually take that flight. Consequently, most airlines overbook-that is, they take more reservations than the capacity of the aircraft. Occasionally, more passengers will want to take a flight than the capacity of the plane leading to one or more passengers being bumped and thus unable to take the flight for which they had reservations.

Airlines deal with bumped passengers in various ways. Some are given nothing, some are booked on later flights on other airlines, and some are given some kind of cash or airline ticket incentive.

Consider the overbooking issue in light of the current situation: Less flights by airlines from point A to point B Heightened security at and around airports Passengers' fear Loss of billions of dollars in revenue by airlines to date

Build a mathematical model that examines the effects that different overbooking schemes have on the revenue received by an airline company in order to find an optimal overbooking strategy, i.e., the number of people by which an airline should overbook a particular flight so that the company's revenue is maximized. Insure that your model reflects the issues above, and consider alternatives for handling “bumped” passengers. Additionally, write a short memorandum to the airline's CEO summarizing your findings and analysis.

2003 MCM A: The Stunt Person

An exciting action scene in a movie is going to be filmed, and you are the stunt coordinator! A stunt person on a motorcycle will jump over an elephant and land in a pile of cardboard boxes to cushion their fall. You need to protect the stunt person, and also use relatively few cardboard boxes (lower cost, not seen by camera, etc.).

Your job is to:

· determine what size boxes to use

· determine how many boxes to use

· determine how the boxes will be stacked

· determine if any modifications to the boxes would help

· generalize to different combined weights (stunt person & motorcycle) and different jump heights

Note that, in “Tomorrow Never Dies”, the James Bond character on a motorcycle jumps over a helicopter.

2003 MCM B: Gamma Knife Treatment Planning

Stereotactic radiosurgery delivers a single high dose of ionizing radiation to a radiographically well-defined, small intracranial 3D brain tumor without delivering any significant fraction of the prescribed dose to the surrounding brain tissue. Three modalities are commonly used in this area; they are the gamma knife unit, heavy charged particle beams, and external high-energy photon beams from linear accelerators.

The gamma knife unit delivers a single high dose of ionizing radiation emanating from 201 cobalt-60 unit sources through a heavy helmet. All 201 beams simultaneously intersect at the isocenter, resulting in a spherical (approximately) dose distribution at the effective dose levels. Irradiating the isocenter to deliver dose is termed a “shot.” Shots can be represented as different spheres. Four interchangeable outer collimator helmets with beam channel diameters of 4, 8, 14, and 18 mm are available for irradiating different size volumes. For a target volume larger than one shot, multiple shots can be used to cover the entire target. In practice, most target volumes are treated with 1 to 15 shots. The target volume is a bounded, three-dimensional digital image that usually consists of millions of points.

The goal of radiosurgery is to deplete tumor cells while preserving normal structures. Since there are physical limitations and biological uncertainties involved in this therapy process, a treatment plan needs to account for all those limitations and uncertainties. In general, an optimal treatment plan is designed to meet the following requirements.

1. Minimize the dose gradient across the target volume.

2. Match specified isodose contours to the target volumes.

3. Match specified dose-volume constraints of the target and critical organ.

4. Minimize the integral dose to the entire volume of normal tissues or organs.

5. Constrain dose to specified normal tissue points below tolerance doses.

6. Minimize the maximum dose to critical volumes.

In gamma unit treatment planning, we have the following constraints:

1. Prohibit shots from protruding outside the target.

2. Prohibit shots from overlapping (to avoid hot spots).

3. Cover the target volume with effective dosage as much as possible. But at least 90% of the target volume must be covered by shots.