The tree-cut width of a graph is a graph parameter defined by Wollan [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B, 110:47–66, 2015] with the help of tree-cut decompositions. In certain cases, tree-cut width appears to be more adequate than treewidth as an invariant that, when bounded, can accelerate the resolution of intractable problems. While designing algorithms for problems with bounded tree-cut width, it is important to have a parametrically tractable way to compute the exact value of this parameter or, at least, some constant approximation of it. In this paper we give a parameterized 2-approximation algorithm for the computation of tree-cut width; for an input n-vertex graph G and an integer w, our algorithm either confirms that the tree-cut width of G is more than w or […]