Application of software solution for solving engineering design optimization problems

Abstract

Engineering design problems involving a set of continuous, discrete and integer design variables and complex, non-convex objective functions and linear and non-linear constraints represent optimization problems with considerable complexity which are not trivial to solve. In recent years a number of optimization methods, particularly meta-heuristic optimization algorithms, were highlighted as effective optimization tools to deal with this type of engineering design problems. Despite certain advantages, their stochastic nature may be insufficient in dealing with various kinds of variables, constraints and objective functions. This paper discusses the application of developed software solution for solving engineering design optimization problems which is based on deterministic approach, i.e. the use of exhaustive iterative search algorithm. The use of the developed software solution is validated using four standard engineering design problems reported in the referential literature. In all case studies, the determined optimization solutions are equally good or better than those reported from other researchers using algorithms representative of the state-of-the-art in the area.