SHAPE OPTIMIZATION FOR TRUSS STRUCTURES BASED ON PARALLEL CHAOS OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM AND COMPLEX METHOD

A new hybrid optimization algorithm based on a parallel chaos optimization algorithm (PCOA) and a complex method is presented to solve the shape optimization for truss structures, which aims at the minimum weight with stress, displacement and buckling constraints under multiple load cases. This new hybrid optimization algorithm takes advantages of the global search ability of PCOA, the fast local search ability of complex methods and chaos fine search functions. Firstly, PCOA is employed to rapidly obtain the optimal solutions which are near the global optimum, and then the optimum searching speed is accelerated by the complex method which takes the optimal solutions got by PCOA as the initial complex shape. Finally, the accurate optimal solution is achieved by the chaos fine search function. The effectiveness and stability of this hybrid algorithm to shape optimization for truss structures is demonstrated by two numerical examples.