harmony search for structural design
Various algorithms have been developed and applied to structural optimization, in which cross-sectional areas of structure members are assumed to be continuous. In most cases of practical structure designs, however, decision variables (cross-sectional areas) are discrete. This paper proposes a combinatorial optimization model for structural design using a new nature-inspired algorithm, harmony search (HS). HS is also compared to genetic algorithms through a standard truss example. Numerical results reveal that the proposed HS is a powerful search algorithm for combinatorial structure optimization.
harmony search structural design combinatorial optimization