A comparative study of multi-objective evolutionary metaheuristics for lattice girder design optimization

The geometric nonlinearity has been successfully integrated with the design of steel structural system. Thus, the tubular lattice girder, one application of steel structural systems have already been optimized to obtain an economic design following the completion of computationally expensive design procedure. In order to decrease its computing cost, this study proposes to employ five multi-objective metaheuristics for the design optimization of geometrically nonlinear tubular lattice girder. Then, the employed multi-objective optimization algorithms (MOAs), NSGAII, PESAII, SPEAII, AbYSS and MoCell are evaluated considering their computing performances. For an unbiased evaluation of their computing performance, a tubular lattice girder with varying size-shape-topology and a benchmark truss design with 17 members are not only optimized considering the geometrically nonlinear behavior, but three benchmark mathematical functions along with the four benchmark linear design problems are also included for the comparison purpose. The proposed experimental study is carried out by use of an intelligent optimization tool named JMetal v5.10. According to the quantitative results of employed quality indicators with respect to a statistical analysis test, MoCell is resulted with an achievement of showing better computing performance compared to other four MOAs. Consequently, MoCell is suggested as an optimization tool for the design of geometrically nonlinear tubular lattice girder than the other employed MOAs.