Proposal of Simulated Annealing Algorithms for Optimal Arrangement in a Circular Consecutive-k-out-of-n: F System

Abstract

A circular consecutive-k-out-of-n: F system consists of n components arranged along a circular path. This system fails if and only if k or more consecutive components fail. As the number of components n increases, the amount of calculation to solve optimal component arrangement problems in this kind of system exactly would be too much. In this paper, we propose two types of simulated annealing algorithms to obtain quasi optimal solutions for such problems. We compare their performances with a genetic algorithm proposed in the previous research work and demonstrate the advantage of our proposed algorithms through numerical experiments.

Key Words:

• Circular consecutive-k-out-of-n: F system
• optimal component arrangement problem
• simulated annealing algorithm

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Koji Shingyochi

Koji Shingyochi is an Associate Professor in Faculty of Social and Information Sciences, Jumonji University, Japan. He received a B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering and a M.S. degree in Electronic Informatics from University of Electro-Communications, Japan in 1991 and 1993, and a doctoral degree in Advanced Science and Technology from Teikyo University of Science and Technology, Japan in 1999, respectively. His main research interest is optimal design of consecutive-k-out-of-n systems.

Hisashi Yamamoto

Hisashi Yamamoto is a Professor in Faculty of System Design, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan. He received the B.S., M.S. and Doctoral degree (Dr. Eng.) in Industrial Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan in 1981, 1983 and 1996, respectively. His main research interests optimizations based on the reliability engineering for fault tolerant systems, facility layout problems and so on.

Yasuhiro Tsujimura

Yasuhiro Tsujimura is an Associate Professor at Department of Computer and Information Engineering, Nippon Institute of Technology, Japan. He received his B.E., M.E. and Ph.D. in system safety engineering from Kogakuin University, Japan. His research interests include evolutionary computations and swarm intelligence, and their applications for operations research, reliability engineering, engineering design, economics, and so on. His articles have appeared in Fuzzy Sets and Systems, Computers and Industrial Engineering, Intelligent Manufacturing, IECE Transactions on Fundamentals, Journal of Japan Industrial Management Association, and so on. He is a member of IEEE, Japan Industrial Management Association, the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan, and so on.

Tomoaki Akiba

Tomoaki Akiba is a Lecturer at the Intelligent Electronic Systems course of Yamagata College of Industry and Technology in Japan. He received B.S. and M.E. degree from the Teikyo University of Science and Technology in 1995 and 1997, respectively. And, he received the doctor’s degree (Dr. Eng.) from Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Technology in 2004. From 1997 to 2010, he has served a Lecturer at the Information Management Engineering course of Yamagata College of Industry and Technology. He is engaged in research in the fields of reliability engineering, operations research and statistical quality control, and so on. He is a member of REAJ, JIMA JSQC and IEEE, etc.