Title: Discrete nonlinear optimisation by constraint decomposition and designer interaction

Authors: E. Khorshid, A. Seireg

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1513 University Ave, Madison, WI 53706-1572, USA

Abstract: A procedure is developed for optimising discrete non-linear problems by decomposition of the constraints and the merit function and rearranging the decomposed stages into sequential levels. Forward and backward techniques are used to overcome any infeasibility encountered in the subsystems and to improve the design merit. The complex gear train design problem investigated by Pomrehn and Papalambros [20] is used for illustrating the proposed strategy. The improvement in the design merit and the reduction in computational effort gained as a result of designer interaction are demonstrated.

Keywords: interactive design; discrete nonlinear optimisation; decomposition based design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.1999.000208

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 1999 Vol.12 No.2/3/4/5, pp.233-244

Published online: 13 Jul 2003 *

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