Demonstrating the high level of maturity reached in design optimisation methodologies and applications, this book contains most of the papers presented at the Eighth International Conference on Computer Aided Optimum Design of Structures.

The engineering problems featured consist of case studies in mechanical and car engineering, considering issues such as static, dynamic analysis and fracture mechanics. Manufacturing and structural protection issues are presented in several papers, as are emergent application fields such as biomechanics.

The contributions on numerical methods include reviews of gradient-based numerical optimisation and search techniques as well as genetic algorithms and the classes of problems solved in structural design such as size, shape and topology optimisation.