A Cultural Algorithm for Optimal Design of Truss Structures

Abstract

A cultural algorithm was utilized in this study to solve optimal design of truss structures problem achieving minimum weight objective under stress and deflection constraints. The algorithm is inspired by principles of human social evolution. It simulates the social interaction between the peoples and their beliefs in a belief space. Cultural Algorithm (CA) utilizes the belief space and population space which affects each other based on acceptance and influence functions. The belief space of CA consists of different knowledge components. In this paper, only situational and normative knowledge components are used within the belief space. The performance of the method is demonstrated through four benchmark design examples. Comparison of the obtained results with those of some previous studies demonstrates the efficiency of this algorithm.

A Quantitative Comparison Between Size, Shape, Topology and Simultaneous Optimization for Truss Structures

“…This is not the heaviest structure possible from the selection of sections, but given the large range of section sizes and the results obtained a lighter structure which also satisfies the constraints was selected for the comparison. When comparing the result of 217 kg obtained for the size optimization with the 170 kg found by several other researchers (Jalili and Hosseinzadeh, 2015;Degertekin, 2013;Camp, 2007), there is a 28 % deficit. This may be due to a grouping discrepancy between the respective problem definitions.…”

Truss Structure Optimization with Subset Simulation and Augmented Lagrangian Multiplier Method

“…Loading conditions acting on the 25-bar truss. This truss problem has been previously studied by using deterministic global methods [3] and many stochastic optimization methods [21,27,28,31,[34][35][36][37][38][39]41,45]. Table 5 compares the best designs found by ALSSO and the above-mentioned stochastic methods.…”

“…All the published results satisfy the limits on the stress. To the best of our knowledge, CA [37] generated the best design for this test problem. The best designs from HM, HPSSO, improved TLBO, FPA, and WEO slightly violated the nodal displacement constraints.…”

“…Case 1 (kips) Case 2 (kips) P x P y P z P x P y P z This truss problem has been previously studied using deterministic global methods [3], a GA-based method [9], HS [28], ACO [16], PSO [23], ALPSO [25], BB-BC [33], SAHS [27], TLBO [34], CA [37], and WEO [39]. Their best designs are compared against that obtained by the proposed method, and are shown in Table 8.…”

Design of Pin Jointed Structures under Stress and Deflection Constraints Using Hybrid Electromagnetism-like Mechanism and Migration Strategy Algorithm

“…Hence, extensive studies have been carried out to develop different optimization methods, ranging from gradient-based search techniques to derivative-free global optimization algorithms. As an alternative to the classical optimization approaches, meta-heuristic optimization techniques such as harmony search (HS) [7] have been widely utilized and improved to solve structural optimization problems characterized by non-convex, dis-continuous, and non-differentiable [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].The meta-heuristic algorithms have some advantages such as a simple framework and ease of implementation. Therefore, these algorithms have been adopted by researchers so far and are well suited to solve various structural optimum design problems including the sizing, layout, and topology optimization problems [17][18][19][20][21].…”