A new upper bound for unconstrained two-dimensional cutting and packing

A new upper bound for the unconstrained two-dimensional cutting or packing problem is proposed in this paper. The proposed upper bound can be calculated for any size of plate by solving just two knapsack problems at the beginning of the algorithm. In this research, the proposed upper bound was applied to the well known exact cutting algorithm, although it can be used for both cutting and packing applications. The experimental results demonstrate that the new upper bound is very efficient, and reduces the search time required to find an optimal solution.