Finding all global optima of engineering design problems with discrete signomial terms

ABSTRACT

Many engineering design problems are frequently modelled as nonlinear programming problems with discrete signomial terms. In general, signomial programs are very difficult to solve for obtaining the globally optimal solution. This study reformulates the engineering design problem with discrete signomial terms as a mixed-integer linear program and finds all alternative global optima. Compared with existing exact methods, the proposed method uses fewer variables and constraints in the reformulated model and therefore efficiently solves the engineering problem to derive all global optima. Illustrative examples from the literature are solved to demonstrate the usefulness and efficiency of the proposed method.

KEYWORDS:

• Engineering design problem
• discrete signomial terms
• global optimization
• linearization
• alternative optimal solutions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan, ROC [grant nos. MOST 107-2410-H-845-005, MOST 105-2410-H-027-004-MY2, MOST 107-2410-H-027-005].