Enhanced particle swarm optimization for size and shape optimization of truss structures

ABSTRACT

This article presents an enhanced particle swarm optimization (EPSO) algorithm for size and shape optimization of truss structures. The proposed EPSO introduces a particle categorization mechanism into the particle swarm optimization (PSO) to eliminate unnecessary structural analyses during the optimization process and improve the computational efficiency of the PSO-based structural optimization. The numerical investigation, including three benchmark truss optimization problems, examines the efficiency of the EPSO. The results demonstrate that the particle categorization mechanism greatly reduces the computational requirements of the PSO-based approaches while maintaining the original search capability of the algorithms in solving optimization problems with computationally cheap objective function and expensive constraints.

KEYWORDS:

• Particle swarm optimization
• structural optimization
• truss structure
• computational efficiency

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number WUT: 2015IVA015] and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51408249].