• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.263-275
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• 2020

This research is dedicated to slope stability analysis using novel intelligent models. By coupling a neural network with spotted hyena optimizer (SHO), salp swarm algorithm (SSA), shuffled frog leaping algorithm (SFLA), and league champion optimization algorithm (LCA) metaheuristic algorithms, four predictive ensembles are built for predicting the factor of safety (FOS) of a single-layer cohesive soil slope. The data used to develop the ensembles are provided from a vast finite element analysis. After creating the proposed models, it was observed that the best population size for the SHO, SSA, SFLA, and LCA is 300, 400, 400, and 200, respectively. Evaluation of the results showed that the combination of metaheuristic and neural approaches offers capable tools for estimating the FOS. However, the SSA (error = 0.3532 and correlation = 0.9937), emerged as the most reliable optimizer, followed by LCA (error = 0.5430 and correlation = 0.9843), SFLA (error = 0.8176 and correlation = 0.9645), and SHO (error = 2.0887 and correlation = 0.8614). Due to the high accuracy of the SSA in properly adjusting the computational parameters of the neural network, the corresponding FOS predictive formula is presented to be used as a fast yet accurate substitution for traditional methods.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.81-93
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• 2021

Splitting tensile strength (STS) is an important mechanical parameter of concrete. This study offers novel methodologies for the early prediction of this parameter. Artificial neural network (ANN), which is a leading predictive method, is synthesized with two metaheuristic algorithms, namely atom search optimization (ASO) and equilibrium optimizer (EO) to achieve an optimal tuning of the weights and biases. The models are applied to data collected from the published literature. The sensitivity of the ASO and EO to the population size is first investigated, and then, proper configurations of the ASO-NN and EO-NN are compared to the conventional ANN. Evaluating the prediction results revealed the excellent efficiency of EO in optimizing the ANN. Accuracy improvements attained by this algorithm were 13.26 and 11.41% in terms of root mean square error and mean absolute error, respectively. Moreover, it raised the correlation from 0.89958 to 0.92722. This is while the results of the conventional ANN were slightly better than ASO-NN. The EO was also a faster optimizer than ASO. Based on these findings, the combination of the ANN and EO can be an efficient non-destructive tool for predicting the STS.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.359-370
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• 2017

This study presents a particle swarm optimization algorithm integrated with weighted particle concept and improved fly-back technique. The rationale behind this integration is to utilize the affirmative properties of these new terms to improve the search capability of the standard particle swarm optimizer. Improved fly-back technique introduced in this study can be a proper alternative for widely used penalty functions to handle existing constraints. This technique emphasizes the role of the weighted particle on escaping from trapping into local optimum(s) by utilizing a recursive procedure. On the other hand, it guaranties the feasibility of the final solution by rejecting infeasible solutions throughout the optimization process. Additionally, in contrast with penalty method, the improved fly-back technique does not contain any adjustable terms, thus it does not inflict any extra ad hoc parameters to the main optimizer algorithm. The improved fly-back approach, as independent unit, can easily be integrated with other optimizers to handle the constraints. Consequently, to evaluate the performance of the proposed method on solving the truss weight minimization problems with discrete variables, several benchmark examples taken from the technical literature are examined using the presented method. The results obtained are comparatively reported through proper graphs and tables. Based on the results acquired in this study, it can be stated that the proposed method (integrated particle swarm optimizer, iPSO) is competitive with other metaheuristic algorithms in solving this class of truss optimization problems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.195-207
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• 2022

Computational drawbacks associated with regular predictive models have motivated engineers to use hybrid techniques in dealing with complex engineering tasks like simulating the compressive strength of concrete (CSC). This study evaluates the efficiency of tree potential metaheuristic schemes, namely shuffled complex evolution (SCE), multi-verse optimizer (MVO), and beetle antennae search (BAS) for optimizing the performance of a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) system. The models are fed by the information of 1030 concrete specimens (where the amount of cement, blast furnace slag (BFS), fly ash (FA1), water, superplasticizer (SP), coarse aggregate (CA), and fine aggregate (FA2) are taken as independent factors). The results of the ensembles are compared to unreinforced MLP to examine improvements resulted from the incorporation of the SCE, MVO, and BAS. It was shown that these algorithms can considerably enhance the training and prediction accuracy of the MLP. Overall, the proposed models are capable of presenting an early, inexpensive, and reliable prediction of the CSC. Due to the higher accuracy of the BAS-based model, a predictive formula is extracted from this algorithm.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.513-522
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• 2022

Due to the importance of accurate analysis of bearing capacity in civil engineering projects, this paper studies the efficiency of two novel metaheuristic-based models for this objective. To this end, black hole algorithm (BHA) and multi-verse optimizer (MVO) are synthesized with an artificial neural network (ANN) to build the proposed hybrid models. Based on the settlement of a two-layered soil (and a shallow footing) system, the stability values (SV) of 0 and 1 (indicating the stability and failure, respectively) are set as the targets. Each model predicted the SV for 901 stages. The results indicated that the BHA and MVO can increase the accuracy (i.e., the area under the receiving operating characteristic curve) of the ANN from 94.0% to 96.3 and 97.2% in analyzing the SV pattern. Moreover, the prediction accuracy rose from 93.1% to 94.4 and 95.0%. Also, a comparison between the ANN's error decreased by the BHA and MVO (7.92% vs. 18.08% in the training phase and 6.28% vs. 13.62% in the testing phase) showed that the MVO is a more efficient optimizer. Hence, the suggested MVO-ANN can be used as a reliable approach for the practical estimation of bearing capacity.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.281-291
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• 2022

Surmounting complexities in analyzing the mechanical parameters of concrete entails selecting an appropriate methodology. This study integrates a novel metaheuristic technique, namely satin bowerbird optimizer (SBO) with artificial neural network (ANN) for predicting uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of concrete. For this purpose, the created hybrid is trained and tested using a relatively large dataset collected from the published literature. Three other new algorithms, namely Henry gas solubility optimization (HGSO), sunflower optimization (SFO), and vortex search algorithm (VSA) are also used as benchmarks. After attaining a proper population size for all algorithms, the Utilizing various accuracy indicators, it was shown that the proposed ANN-SBO not only can excellently analyze the UCS behavior, but also outperforms all three benchmark hybrids (i.e., ANN-HGSO, ANN-SFO, and ANN-VSA). In the prediction phase, the correlation indices of 0.87394, 0.87936, 0.95329, and 0.95663, as well as mean absolute percentage errors of 15.9719, 15.3845, 9.4970, and 8.0629%, calculated for the ANN-HGSO, ANN-SFO, ANN-VSA, and ANN-SBO, respectively, manifested the best prediction performance for the proposed model. Also, the ANN-VSA achieved reliable results as well. In short, the ANN-SBO can be used by engineers as an efficient non-destructive method for predicting the UCS of concrete.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.289-303
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• 2015

This study presents a strategy so-called Subspace Search Mechanism (SSM) for reducing the computational time for convergence of population based metaheusristic algorithms. The selected metaheuristic for this study is the Cuckoo Search algorithm (CS) dealing with size optimization of trusses. The complexity of structural optimization problems can be partially due to the presence of high-dimensional design variables. SSM approach aims to reduce dimension of the problem. Design variables are categorized to predefined groups (subspaces). SSM focuses on the multiple use of the metaheuristic at hand for each subspace. Optimizer updates the design variables for each subspace independently. Updating rules require candidate designs evaluation. Each candidate design is the assemblage of responsible set of design variables that define the subspace of interest. SSM is incorporated to the Cuckoo Search algorithm for size optimizing of three small, moderate and large space trusses. Optimization results indicate that SSM enables the CS to work with less number of population (42%), as a result reducing the time of convergence, in exchange for some accuracy (1.5%). It is shown that the loss of accuracy can be lessened with increasing the order of complexity. This suggests its applicability to other algorithms and other complex finite element-based engineering design problems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.677-691
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• 2022

Water cycle algorithm (WCA) has been a very effective optimization technique for complex engineering problems. This study employs the WCA for simultaneous prediction of heating load (L_H) and cooling load (L_C) in residential buildings. This algorithm is responsible for optimally tuning a neural network (NN). Utilizing 614 records, the behavior of the L_H and L_C is explored and the captured knowledge is then used to predict for 154 unanalyzed building conditions. Since the WCA is a population-based algorithm, different numbers of the searching agents were tested to find the most optimum configuration. It was observed that the best solution is discovered by 500 agents. A comparison with five newly-developed benchmark optimizers, namely equilibrium optimizer (EO), multi-tracker optimization algorithm (MTOA), slime mould algorithm (SMA), multi-verse optimizer (MVO), and electromagnetic field optimization (EFO) revealed that the WCANN predicts the desired parameters with considerably larger accuracy. Obtained root mean square errors (1.4866, 2.1296, 2.8279, 2.5727, 2.5337, and 2.3029 for the L_H and 2.1767, 2.6459, 3.1821, 2.9732, 2.9616, and 2.6890 for the L_C) indicated that the most reliable prediction was presented by the proposed model. The EFONN, however, provided a more time-effective solution. Lastly, an explicit predictive formula was elicited from the WCANN.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.513-530
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• 2013

In this paper, an improved version of particle swarm optimization based optimum design algorithm (IPSO) is presented for the steel grillage systems. The optimum design problem is formulated considering the provisions of American Institute of Steel Construction concerning Load and Resistance Factor Design. The optimum design algorithm selects the appropriate W-sections for the beams of the grillage system such that the design constraints are satisfied and the grillage weight is the minimum. When an improved version of the technique is extended to be implemented, the related results and convergence performance prove to be better than the simple particle swarm optimization algorithm and some other metaheuristic optimization techniques. The efficiency of different inertia weight parameters of the proposed algorithm is also numerically investigated considering a number of numerical grillage system examples.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.513-521
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• 2023

The goal of this work is to create a new and improved GWO (Grey Wolf Optimizer), the so-called Robot GWO (RGWO), for dynamic and static target tracking involving multiple robots in unknown environmental conditions. From applying ourselves with the Gray Wolf Optimization Algorithm (GWO) and how it works, as the name suggests, it is a nature-inspired metaheuristic based on the behavior of wolf packs. Like other nature-inspired metaheuristics such as genetic algorithms and firefly algorithms, we explore the search space to find the optimal solution. The results also show that the improved optimal control method can provide superior power characteristics even when operating conditions and design parameters are changed.