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  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 11
    Citation - Scopus: 13
    Automated Selection of Optimal Material for Pressurized Multi-Layer Composite Tubes Based on an Evolutionary Approach
    (Springer London Ltd, 2018) Azad, Saeid Kazemzadeh; Akis, Tolga
    Decision making on the configuration of material layers as well as thickness of each layer in composite assemblies has long been recognized as an optimization problem. Today, on the one hand, abundance of industrial alloys with different material properties and costs facilitates fabrication of more economical or light weight assemblies. On the other hand, in the design stage, availability of different alternative materials apparently increases the complexity of the design optimization problem and arises the need for efficient optimization techniques. In the present study, the well-known big bang-big crunch optimization algorithm is reformulated for optimum design of internally pressurized tightly fitted multi-layer composite tubes with axially constrained ends. An automated material selection and thickness optimization approach is employed for both weight and cost minimization of one-, two-, and three-layer tubes, and the obtained results are compared. The numerical results indicate the efficiency of the proposed approach in practical optimum design of multi-layer composite tubes under internal pressure and quantify the optimality of different composite assemblies compared to one-layer tubes.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 60
    Citation - Scopus: 64
    Seeding the Initial Population With Feasible Solutions in Metaheuristic Optimization of Steel Trusses
    (Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2018) Azad, Saeid Kazemzadeh
    In spite of considerable research work on the development of efficient algorithms for discrete sizing optimization of steel truss structures, only a few studies have addressed non-algorithmic issues affecting the general performance of algorithms. For instance, an important question is whether starting the design optimization from a feasible solution is fruitful or not. This study is an attempt to investigate the effect of seeding the initial population with feasible solutions on the general performance of metaheuristic techniques. To this end, the sensitivity of recently proposed metaheuristic algorithms to the feasibility of initial candidate designs is evaluated through practical discrete sizing of real-size steel truss structures. The numerical experiments indicate that seeding the initial population with feasible solutions can improve the computational efficiency of metaheuristic structural optimization algorithms, especially in the early stages of the optimization. This paves the way for efficient metaheuristic optimization of large-scale structural systems.