Engineering Design Applications

Abstract

Applications of global optimization problems often arise when optimizing complex systems. Examples of such global optimization problems appear in engineering design where design problems are often highly nonlinear. The feasible region may be nonconvex and disconnected, and the functions may be nonconvex, nondifferentiable and even discontinuous. In addition, the decision variables may include both discrete and continuous variables. Many engineers are reporting success applying simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, hybrid methods, as well as variations of Improving Hit-and-Run and Hide-and-Seek to optimize complex engineering design problems.