• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.63-70
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• 2013

Many real world optimization problems are discrete and multi-valued. Meta heuristics including Genetic Algorithm and Particle Swarm Optimization have been effectively used to solve these multi-valued optimization problems. However, extensive comparative study on the performance of these algorithms is still required. In this study, performance of these algorithms is evaluated with multi-modal and multi-dimensional test functions. From the experimental results, it is shown that Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization (DPSO) provides better and more reliable solutions among the considered algorithms. Also, additional experiments shows that solution quality of DPSO is not lowered significantly when bit size representing a solution increases. It means that bit representation of multi-valued discrete numbers provides reliable solutions instead of becoming barrier to performance of DPSO.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.49-56
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• 2010

This study was conducted to find out the best optimum design method for the design of reinforced concrete agricultural aqueduct abutment and pier structures. The mixed-discrete optimization and continuous optimization method were applied to the design of reinforced concrete agricultural aqueduct abutment and pier and the results of these optimization methods were compared each other. It is proved that mixed-discrete optimization method is more reliable, efficient and reasonable than continuous optimization method for the optimum design of the reinforced concrete agricultural aqueduct abutment and pier.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.359-372
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• 1995

This study presents an efficient method for optimum design of plate and shell structures, when the design variables are continuous or discrete. Both sizing and shape design variables are considered. First the structural responses such as element forces are approximated in terms of some intermediate variables. By substituting these approximate relations into the original design problem, an explicit nonlinear approximate design task with high quality approximation is achieved. This problem with continuous variables, can be solved by means of numerical optimization techniques very efficiently, the results of which are then used for discrete variable optimization. Now, the approximate problem is converted into a sequence of second level approximation problems of separable form and each of which is solved by a dual strategy with discrete design variables. The approach is efficient in terms of the number of required structural analyses, as well as the overall computational cost of optimization. Examples are offered and compared with other methods to demonstrate the features of the proposed method.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.734-739
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• 2001

In this paper, an algorithm for stacking sequence optimization which deals with discrete ply angles is used for optimization of composite laminated plates. To handle discrete ply angles, the branch and bound method is modified. Numerical results show that the optimal stacking sequence is found with fewer evaluations of objective function than expected with the size of feasible region, which shows the algorithm can be effectively used for layup optimization of composite laminates..

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.408-413
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• 2001

The structural optimization is carried out in the continuous design space or discrete design space. Methods for discrete variables such as genetic algorithms are extremely expensive in computational cost. In this research, an iterative optimization algorithm using orthogonal arrays is developed for design in discrete space. An orthogonal array is selected on a discrete design space and levels are selected from candidate values. Matrix experiments with the orthogonal array are conducted. New results of matrix experiments are obtained with penalty functions for constraints. A new design is determined from analysis of means(ANOM). An orthogonal array is defined around the new values and matrix experiments are conducted. The final optimum design is found from iterative process. The suggested algorithm has been applied to various problems such as truss and frame type structures. The results are compared with those from a genetic algorithm and discussed.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.04a
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• pp.254-261
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• 1998

This study presents a discrete optimization of tall steel buildings under multiple drift constraints using a dual method. Dual method can replace the primary optimization problem with a sequence of approximate explicit subproblems. Since each subproblem is convex and separable, it can be efficiently solved by using a dual formulation. Specifically, this study considers the discrete-optimization problem due to the commercial standard steel sections to select member sizes. The results by the proposed method will be compared with those of the conventional optimality criteria method

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.351-358
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• 2005

Many methods have been developed and are in use for structural size optimization problems, In which the cross-sectional areas or sizing variables are usually assumed to be continuous. In most practical structural engineering design problems, however, the design variables are discrete. This paper proposes an efficient optimization method for structures with discrete-sized variables based on the harmony search (HS) meta-heuristic algorithm. The recently developed HS algorithm was conceptualized using the musical process of searching for a perfect state of harmony. It uses a stochastic random search instead of a gradient search so that derivative information is unnecessary In this paper, a discrete search strategy using the HS algorithm is presented in detail and its effectiveness and robustness, as compared to current discrete optimization methods, are demonstrated through a standard truss example. The numerical results reveal that the proposed method is a powerful search and design optimization tool for structures with discrete-sized members, and may yield better solutions than those obtained using current method.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.53-57
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• 2003

Optimum design of most structural system requires that design variables are regarded as discrete quantities. This paper presents the use of Genetic Algorithm for determining the optimum design for truss with discrete variables. Genetic Algorithm are know as heuristic search algorithms, and are effective global search methods for discrete optimization. In this paper, Elitism and the method of conferring penalty parameters in the design variables, in order to achieve improved fitness in the reproduction process, is used in the Genetic Algorithm. A 10-Bar plane truss and a 25-Bar space truss are used for discrete optimization. These structures are designed for stress and displacement constraints, but buckling is not considered. In particular, we obtain continuous solution using Genetic Algorithms for a 10-bar truss, compared with other results. The effectiveness of Genetic Algorithms for global optimization is demonstrated through two truss examples.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.25-31
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• 2002

This paper is to find optimum design of plane framed structures with discrete variables. Global search algorithms for this problem are Genetic Algorithms(GAs), Simulated Annealing(SA) and Shuffled Complex Evolution(SCE), and hybrid methods (GAs-SA, GAs-SCE). GAs and SA are heuristic search algorithms and effective tools which is finding global solution for discrete optimization. In particular, GAs is known as the search method to find global optimum or near global optimum. In this paper, reinforced concrete plane frames with rectangular section and steel plane frames with W-sections are used for the design of discrete optimization. These structures are designed for stress constraints. The robust and effectiveness of Genetic Algorithms are demonstrated through several examples.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.453-462
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• 2002

Discrete-sizing or standardized steel profiles are used in steel design and construction practice. However, most of numerical optimization methods follow additional step(round-up discrete-sizing routine) to use the standardized steel section profiles, and accordingly the optimality of the resulting design nay be doubtful. Thus, in this paper, an efficient multi-level optimization algorithm is proposed to improve the shortcoming of the conventional optimization methods using the round-up discrete-sizing routine. Also, multi-level optimization technique with a decomposition method that separates both system-level and element-level is incorporated in the algorithm to enhance the performance of the proposed algorithms. The proposed algorithm is expected to achieve considerable improvement on both the efficiency of the numerical process and the accuracy of the global optimum.