Author(s)

J.A. Bland

Abstract

An implementation of tabu search in a structural design context is presented which features /3-depth neighbourhoods and a search back-track facility. In- vestigations show that tabu search may readily cope with problem formu- lations that include dispacement, stress and side constraints. Furthermore, compared to previous research, superior (i.e. lower) minimum weights may be obtained. 1 Space Truss The structural design problem considered in this paper is the weight min- imisation of a transmission tower (space truss). The design variables are the cross-sectional areas, a,, i = 1,2,---, 25, of the truss members (25 members), which take values within a finite set, S, comprising the possible discrete cross-sectional area values. The particular truss in this paper was chos

Keywords