A novel binomial strategy for simultaneous topology and size optimization of truss structures
Ali Mortazavi
Abstract
The current work introduces a new probability-based regulatory mechanism for the simultaneous size and topology optimization of truss structures. The proposed mechanism, by leveraging the Boolean nature of the topological variables, attempts to forecast the behaviour of the search algorithm and emphasizes either topology or size actions to reduce the number of ineffective iterations. The importance of this task becomes more evident in further iterations since the optimal (or nearly optimal) structure topology is identified, and improper elimination of any member can result in infeasible mechanisms and lead to a waste of several iterations. To assess the effectiveness of the proposed auxiliary module, it is integrated with different optimization algorithms to solve distinct size and topology problems. The results demonstrate that this not only enhances the accuracy of the algorithms but also significantly reduces the required computational cost.