TEACHING-LEARNING-BASED OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM FOR SHAPE AND SIZE OPTIMIZATION OF TRUSS STRUCTURES WITH DYNAMIC FREQUENCY CONSTRAINTS

The complicated problem of truss shape and size optimization with multiple frequency constraints is investigated in this paper. A recently developed metaheuristics called teaching-learning- based optimization (TLBO) algorithm is used for the first time to solve this kind of problem. Contrary to other metaheuristics, the procedure of TLBO is simple to implement since no tuning parameters need to be adjusted. Analyses of structures are performed by a finite element code in MATLAB which is used in conjunction with an optimization code based on TLBO. Various benchmark problems are solved with this technique and the results are compared with those found by other methods including metaheuristics such as PSO, HS and FA. In all test cases, the results show that TLBO leads to very satisfactory results i.e. lighter structures which satisfy all frequency constraints. The results of this study indicate excellent inherent capacity of the approach in dealing with complicated dynamic non-linear optimization problems.