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An i mpl ement at i on of new sel ect i on
st rat egi es i n a genet i c al gori t hm
popul at i on recombi nat i on and el i t i st
ref i nement
Noh- Sung Kwak
a
& Jongsoo Lee
a
a
School of Mechani cal Engi neer i ng, Yonsei Uni ver si t y, Seoul ,
120- 749, Kor ea
Ver si on of r ecor d f i r st publ i shed: 07 Jul 2011
To ci t e t hi s art i cl e: Noh- Sung Kwak & Jongsoo Lee ( 2011) : An i mpl ement at i on of new sel ect i on
st r at egi es i n a genet i c al gor i t hm popul at i on r ecombi nat i on and el i t i st r ef i nement , Engi neer i ng
Opt i mi zat i on, 43: 12, 1367- 1384
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Engineering Optimization
Vol. 43, No. 12, December 2011, 13671384
An implementation of new selection strategies in a genetic
algorithm population recombination and elitist renement
Noh-Sung Kwak and Jongsoo Lee*
School of Mechanical Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749 Korea
(Received 8 August 2010; nal version received 17 January 2011)
The present study aims to develop a new genetic algorithm utilizing population recombination and elitist
renement. Population recombination determines how a population and its elitist sub-population evolve.
A whole population consists of three major sub-populations: the rst is the current generations elitist sub-
population, the second is obtained fromthe pure crossover of the elitist sub-population with another existing
sub-population, and the third is the result of a crossover between the elitist and random sub-populations.
Genetic operations such as reproduction and crossover are applied among sub-populations during the
process of population recombination. The renement of the elitist sub-population is then implemented
in order to improve the converged solution that was obtained from the recombination. The renement of
elitist sub-populations facilitates the locations of a more enhanced design by altering the binary values
in chromosomes. The proposed method is veried through a number of nonlinear and/or multi-modal
functions and constrained optimization problems.
Keywords: distributed genetic algorithm; population recombination; elitist sub-population; elitist rene-
ment; tail evolution and tting
1. Introduction
Genetic algorithms (GAs) and their advanced versions have been recognized as one of the most
efcient optimization tools and have been shown to be effective when the analysis model is
inherently nonlinear or when the design problem is represented by a mixture of continuous,
integer and/or discrete design variables (Hajela and Lee 1995, Lee et al. 2002). GA has the
promising capability of locating a global optimumwithout the need for derivative-based sensitivity
information. GA operates through the evolution of multiple candidate solutions to design under
implicit parallelism. Biologically inspired operations of crossover and mutation facilitate the
production of competitive genes during genetic evolution. Such mechanisms in GAs improve
the current level of system performance and eventually enable a near-global optimum state for
the system under the given parameter environment (Deb 2003). The distinct features of GAs draw
upon diversity, discovery and adaptation. In GA, the system adapts for maximum performance
by discovering new competitive genes among the diverse individuals.
In general, GA develops their design candidate solutions based on random exploration. Such
randomness enables the accommodation of diversity and non-convexity in design candidate
*Corresponding author. Email: jleej@yonsei.ac.kr
ISSN 0305-215X print/ISSN 1029-0273 online
2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305215X.2011.558577
http://www.tandfonline.com
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1368 N.-S. Kwak and J. Lee
solutions, whereas it works as disruptiveness in schema convergence when, for example, two
mating pairs for crossover are randomly selected. Such a phenomenon illustrates one of the main
reasons why GA is computationally expensive for use in locating the expected level of opti-
mized design solutions. There have been a number of developments in advanced GA focusing
on convergence speed increase through a new implementation of selection (Huber and Schell
2002, Dukkipati and Murty 2002, Chang et al. 2003, Yoshiaki et al. 2006, Li et al. 2006, Graff
et al. 2007) and crossover (Chakraborty and Chakraborty 2005, Liua and Chena 2009). Many
GA researchers have been interested in methods for recombining the population in which chro-
mosomes are included or excluded in the population (Thierens and Goldberg 1994, Angelov
and Wright 2000, Daoxiong and Xiaogang 2004, Christopher and Ian 2004, Mak et al. 2005,
Li et al. 2007). Some researchers are interested in new encoding methods or hybrid methods
combining GA with other algorithms or techniques (Wang et al. 2006, Hwang and He 2006).
In the present study, a new process of population-handling is suggested such that a whole
populationis decomposedintoa number of sub-populations, andthe genetic evolutionis conducted
between sub-populations. That is, the unique features in the proposed process is the selection (or
reproduction) of the ttest sub-population out of several sub-populations, and the subsequent
crossover due to the mating of a chromosome in one sub-population with a chromosome in
another sub-population. Conventional GA (i.e. simple GA, SGA), on the other hand, works with
individual chromosomes within a single population. This proposed process is referred to as the
recombination of the population. Recombination aims to identify the superior sub-population,
even though one of the chromosomes in that sub-population might at times be disruptive. The
sub-population is a similar idea used in the distributed genetic algorithms, but, the evolutionary
processes are different from the existing distributed algorithms (Michalewicz 1995, Erick 2001).
The sub-populations in the distributed algorithms are used as isolated groups with respective
evolutions for the parallel searching strategies, and only a few individuals are migrated to each
other groups. But, the sub-populations collaborate on a single evolution in the proposed algorithm.
The detailed methods are described in the following chapter.
One of the signicant features in GA is the ability to rapidly locate the near-optimal design
solutions, since GA analyses multiple individuals over the entire design space. However, GA
sometimes terminates due to a premature convergence, showing that the randomness in GAworks
both positively and negatively. Hybrid GAmethods combined with derivative-based methods have
been widely developed in order to enhance the near-optimal design solutions (Oh et al. 2004, Vieira
et al. 2005, Rao and Xiong 2005, Fisz et al. 2005, Yuan et al. 2008); however, such methods have
limitations due to the fact that they require the formulation of sensitivity information. With regard
to premature convergence, the present study suggests another search process such that once the
converged solution is obtained from the aforementioned recombination process, binary values in
some portions of the design candidate solutions sub-chromosomes are altered as either 0 to 1 or 1
to 0 in order to rene the design candidate solutions. This process is referred to as the renement
of the elitist sub-population. Since this is a type of mutation-like precision search, an efcient
handling of the elitist renement is described later in greater detail.
The proposed method was graphically examined via an unconstrained two-variable function
problem and was also veried through a number of nonlinear or multi-modal function problems
and constrained optimization problems.
2. Proposed method
The proposed method consists of two processes: one is population recombination and the other
is elitist renement. A detailed description of the proposed method is given as follows:
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Engineering Optimization 1369
2.1. Recombination of the population (Rp)
Step 1: Generate a randomly distributed initial population, P0, in which there are a total of 20
N
sub
design candidate individuals (i.e. coded chromosomes), where N
sub
is an integer
number (i.e. 5, 10 or 20) indicating the basic sub-population size. (20 N
sub
may be any
number just greater than 2 N
sub
. The researchers recommend the number between 10
and 20 for efciency.)
Step 2: Evaluate and rank all of the design candidate individuals in terms of their unconstrained
and/or constrained objective function value.
Step 3: Choose a total of 2 N
sub
top-ranked design candidate individuals from the population,
and denote this population as P1.
Step 4: Divide P1 into the upper 50% and lower 50% design candidate individuals, and denote
them as sub-populations P1-Upper and P1-Lower, respectively. Subsequently, conduct
a full (100%) crossover operation by mating a chromosome in one sub-population with
a chromosome in the other sub-population; that is, an individual in P1-Upper should be
crossed-over with one in P1-Lower. The present study uses a two-point crossover. The
resulting population from the crossover between P1-Upper and P1-Lower is referred to
as P2.
Step 5: Generate a random sub-population whose size is N
sub
, and denote it as P1-Random.
Step 6: Conduct a full crossover operation between P1-Upper and P1-Random using the same
method described in Step 4. The resulted population from P1-Upper and P1-Random is
called P3.
Step 7: Construct a new population in which P-New = P1 +P2 +P3. The size of P-New is
6 N
sub
since P1, P2 and P3 commonly have a total of 2 N
sub
individuals.
Step 8: Using P-New, repeat these steps beginning with Step 3, until the convergence condition
is met such that the elitist design candidate individual is unchanged over ten consecu-
tive generations. The nal elitist sub-population is conducted using such elitist design
candidate individual. When the nal elitist sub-population is converged, proceed to the
next step.
Step 9: Elitist renement.
Step 9.1: Tail evolution.
Step 9.2: Tail tting.
Step 10: Terminate the algorithm.
The procedure for the recombination process is shown in Figure 1. It is worthy of note
that the new population size at Step 7 turned out to be 6 N
sub
, while the initial population
size was 20 N
sub
. A number of diminished sub-populations are indicated by dotted lines in
Figure 1. The repeated processes between Step 3 and Step 8 thus worked with a population size
of 6 N
sub
. During the aforementioned processes, Step 4 and Step 6 adopted full crossovers;
all of the individuals participated in the crossover operation with a crossover probability of
1.0 (100%). A randomly generated sub-population was used at Step-5, instead of using muta-
tion. The new population in Step 7 consisted of P1, P2 and P3, products of genetic operations,
such as selection/reproduction, crossover and mutation. P1 was the result of reproduction, a
combination of the current generations elitist sub-population. P2 was obtained from a pure
crossover between P1-Upper and the other existing sub-population, and P3 was the result of
a crossover of P1-Upper with a mutated (i.e. randomly generated) sub-population. We must
emphasize that a new population, P-New, was introduced based on the current generations elitist
sub-population, P1-Upper. This extensive mutation-like operation was employed in Step 9, where
the nal elitist sub-population was further enhanced through an altering of the binary values of its
sub-chromosomes.
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1370 N.-S. Kwak and J. Lee
Figure 1. Procedure for recombination process (GARp).
2.2. Renement of the elitist sub-population (Re)
The motivation behind this elitist renement is the enablement of the nal elitist sub-population
to move much closer to the global optimum. Moreover, this renement process was created to
overcome the issues resulting from premature convergence (Hamzacebi 2008). Such a process is
performed by altering the binary values of the nal elitist sub-population until no further improved
design candidate solution is detected. The renement process facilitates the identication of
the improved design candidate solution in cases where the nal elitist sub-population from the
recombination process turns out to be prematurely converged. Two schemes such as tail evolution
and tail tting were also examined in following techniques.
Step 9.1: Tail evolution
For a large dimensionality design problem, it is computationally expensive to individually alter the
binary values of the nal elitist sub-population. Such binary alteration cannot capture multimodal
behaviours toward the global optimum. Therefore, a group of elitist-variants was introduced so
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Engineering Optimization 1371
as to efciently search for a more improved optimized design solution. An individual consists
of several sub-chromosomes which is same to the number of design variables. The head part of
the sub-chromosomes takes most value of the design variable value, and the other part, the tail
part of them takes little of the design variable value. Since the nal design candidate solution is
considered close to the optimal solution, controlling the head part of each sub-chromosome is
wasting time. The detailed sub-steps were as follows:
9.1.1: Construct a total of 6 N
sub
elitist-variants by randomly altering the binary values located in the tail part of
each sub-chromosome, as shown in Figure 2.
9.1.2: Conduct a single generation of conventional genetic evolution with the elitist-variants. As in genetic operations,
an elitist selection and a full (100%) two-point crossover are used without mutation.
The resulting ttest chromosome is referred to as the ttest variant. The ttest-variant should
be as well as or better adapted than the nal elitist.
Step 9.2: Tail tting
The successive steps of tail tting, a mutation-like precision search, are as follows:
9.2.1: Consider the rst design variable value of the ttest-variant.
9.2.2: Both add and subtract the binary value of 1 to the above value.
9.2.3: If the modied design candidate solution is better than the subtracted one in terms of a feasible-usable objective
function value, then continue to add the binary value until an improved design candidate solution is no longer obtained.
But if the subtracted design candidate solution is better, conduct the same process with subtraction of the binary
value.
Figure 2. Elitist-variants in tail evolution.
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1372 N.-S. Kwak and J. Lee
Figure 3. Overall procedure for GARp +TE +TF.
9.2.4: Perform Step 2 and Step 3 for the remaining design variables.
Tail tting implicitly mimics a forced mutation or mutation-like operation. There are two
schemes, tail evolution + tail tting and tail tting, in the renement process. The rst case,
the tail evolution +tail tting scheme can be conducted with the sequential use of Steps 9.1 and
9.2. In the second case, in which only tail tting is considered, the tail tting should begin with
the nal elitist instead of the ttest-variant. The overall procedure for the proposed algorithm
is shown in Figure 3.
3. Graphical representation
The proposed method was graphically examined using Goldstein-Prices function with two design
variables (Pohlheim 2005) expressed as follows:
f
GP
(x) = (1 +(x
1
+x
2
+1)
2
(19 14x
1
+3x
2
1
14x
2
+6x
1
x
2
+3x
2
2
))
(30 +(2x
1
3x
2
)
2
(18 32x
1
+12x
1
+48x
2
36x
1
x
2
+27x
2
2
))
4.095 x
i
4.096, x
i
0.001, i = 1, 2, (1)
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7
3
Table 1. Condition parameters used in numerical examples.
Common setting GARp SGA
Number of bits for
Number of
Number of function
design total binary each binary evaluations each Population
Results variables variables variable N
sub
P-new size generation (P2 +P3) size
Goldstein-Price Figures 4, 5 2 26 13 15 90 90
Rastrigin Figure 6 10 100 10 40 240 160 180
Table 2
Easom Table 4 2 30 15 100 600 400 450
Rastrigin Table 5 10 100 10 100 600 400 400
Schwefel Table 6 10 170 17 30 180 120 110
Griewangk Table 7 10 170 17 70 420 280 250
Sum of different power Table 8 100 800 8 5 30 20 30
Ackleys path Table 9 10 130 13 70 420 280 250
Himmelblau Tables 10, 11 5 56 12 or 11 50 300 200 230
Ten-bar truss Tables 12, 13 10 100 10 70 420 280 430
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1374 N.-S. Kwak and J. Lee
where the global optimum is f

GP
= 3.0 at (x

1
, x

2
) = (0.0, 1.0). The condition parameters
used in the numerical examples are shown in Table 1. As described in Step 1, an initial population
was randomly distributed (Figure 4(a)), wherein the exact solution of the global optimum is
indicated by an arrow. Next, three plots demonstrate the evolution of the design solutions P1,
P2 and P3 in P-New toward the nal elitist sub-population. The rst population of P-New is
shown in Figure 4(b), as are P1, P2 and P3, as well as the elitist sup-population. Design candidate
solutions for P1 at the third and eighth (nal) generations converged more toward each generations
elitist sub-population, as shown in Figures 4(c) and Figures 4(d), respectively. Most of the design
candidate solutions for the eighth generation were as close as the nal elitist sub-population
(Figures 4(d)). Moreover, the dotted region of P1, in which the elitist sub-population (i.e. P1-
Upper) and the elitist chromosome were located, decreased toward the optimum solution as the
generations increased. Successively, two schemes in the renement process were performed,
starting with the nal elitist as an initial chromosome. Their solution behaviours are presented in
Figure 5, wherein nal elitist (eighth elitist) represents the nal elitist from the recombination
process, and ttest variant is the result from Step 9.1.3. The solution in the tail tting scheme
Figure 4. The change of the population in the generation progress.
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Engineering Optimization 1375
Figure 5. Two schemes in renement process.
was modied by individually altering the nal elitists binary value, while the tail evolution
+ tail tting technique identied the ttest elitist beginning with the nal elitist. A number of
function evaluations were required for tail evolution, since it works with a population size of
6 N
sub
. In addition, tail evolution was able to accommodate the multimodal behaviour of the
global optimization function.
The present study shows the advantages of the recombination process in terms of convergence
patterns. Convergence histories for a simple GA (SGA) and a GA with a recombination process
(GARp) were examined as well. In a simple GA, elitist and tournament selection strategies
are used, and the probabilities of crossover and mutation are 0.8 and 0.05, respectively. In this
numerical experiment, Rastrigins function with a total of ten design variables was considered as
follows:
f
R
(x) = 10 n +
10

i=1
(x
2
i
10 cos(2x
i
))
5.11 x
i
5.12, x
i
0.01, i = 1, . . . , 10 (2)
The global optimum of this function is f

R
= 0.0 at (x

i
) = (0.0). GARp and SGA were run
1000 times starting with different initial populations, with three randomly selected results fromthe
1000 runs presented in Figure 6. In this gure, it is evident that GARp produces more consistently
reduced objective function values than does SGA. The optimization performances were further
compared and are summarized in Table 2, where + is the standard deviation. The randomness in
SGA resulted from the initial population, and GARp randomly generated P1-Random, as well as
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1376 N.-S. Kwak and J. Lee
Figure 6. Convergence histories of SGA and GARp for Rastrigins function.
Table 2. Optimization of SGA and GARp for Rastrigins function.
Objective function Number of function evaluations
Mean Best value Mean
SGA 8.36 3.43 1.119 10413.52
GARp 2.35 2.66 0.059 10353.28
an initial population. As seen from the results in Table 2, the recombination process (GARp) was
superior to SGA in terms of objective function value and the number of function evaluations.
4. Numerical examples
The condition parameters used in the numerical examples are shown in Table 1. Most of the
parameters are same in all the algorithms. But, some parameters such as crossover rate and
population size cannot be equal since they use different types of populations and recombination
methods. Mutation rate is 0.05 in all algorithms. Crossover rate of all the examples is 0.8 in a
simple GA(SGA), whereas it is 1.0 in the proposed methods as described in the section Proposed
method. The population size of each example in SGA is determined by considering the function
complexity or nonlinearity. The population size used in the proposed method is almost the same as
that used in SGA. That is, (P2 +P3) in GARp and Population size in SGA look alike as shown
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Engineering Optimization 1377
in Table 1. Instead of using P-New = P1 +P2 +P3, only P2 +P3 participate into generating
new function evaluations. P-New succeeds to P1 from the previous generation without function
evaluation.
4.1. Unconstrained function problems
A total of six nonlinear and/or multimodal unconstrained functions (Pohlheim 2005) were tested
in order to examine the optimization performance of the proposed method. Test functions such
as Easoms, Rastringins, Schwefels, Griewangks, sum of different powers and Ackleys path
functions are outlined in Table 3, wherein their side constraints and global optimum solutions are
presented as well.
4.2. Himmelblaus problem
The nonlinear constrained optimization problem described with ve design variables is stated as
follows (Bhuvaneshwaran et al. 2006):
Minimize
f
H
(x) = 5.3578547x
2
3
+0.8356891x
1
x
5
+37.293239x
1
40792.141 (3)
subject to
0
1
(x) 92
Table 3. Unconstrained functions.
Easoms function
f
E
(x) = cos(x
1
) cos(x
2
) e
((x
1
)
2
+(x
2
)
2
)
100.00 x
i
100.00, x
i
0.01, i = 1, 2 f

E
= 1 at (x

1
, x

2
) = (, )
Rastrigins function
f
R
(x) = 10 n +
10

i=1
(x
2
i
10 cos(2x
i
))
5.11 x
i
5.12, x
i
0.01, i = 1, . . . , 10 f

R
= 0.0 at (x

1
, x

2
) = (0.0, 0.0)
Schwefels function
f
S
(x) =
10

i=1
x
i
sin(
_
|x
i
|)
500.0 x
i
500.0, x
i
0.01, i = 1, . . . , 10 f

S
= 10 418.9829 at (x

i
) = (420.9687)
Griewangks function
f
G
(x) =
10

i=1
x
2
i
4000

10

i=1
cos
_
x
i

i
_
+1
600 x
i
600, x
i
0.01, i = 1, . . . , 10 f

G
= 0.0 at (x

i
) = (0.0)
Sum of different power function
f
SDP
(x) =
100

i=1
|x
i
|
(i+1)
1.27 x
i
1.28, x
i
0.01, i = 1, . . . , 100 f

SDP
= 0.0 at (x

i
) = (0.0)
Ackleys path function
f
AP
(x) = 20 exp

0.2
_

10
i=1
x
2
i
10

exp
_

10
i=1
cos(2x
i
)
10
_
+20.0 +exp(1.0) 32.768 x
i
32.768, x
i
0.01,
i = 1, . . . , 10 f

AP
= 0.0 at (x

i
) = (0.0)
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1378 N.-S. Kwak and J. Lee
90
2
(x) 110
20
3
(x) 25
where

1
(x) = 85.334407 +0.0056858x
2
x
5
+0.00026x
1
x
4
0.0022053x
3
x
5

2
(x) = 80.51249 +0.0071317x
2
x
5
+0.0029955x
1
x
2
+0.0021813x
2
3

3
(x) = 9.300961 +0.0047026x
3
x
5
+0.0012547x
1
x
3
+0.0019085x
3
x
4
78 x
1
102, 33 x
2
45
27 x
3
45, 27 x
4
45, 27 x
5
45 x
i
0.01.
Ten-bar planar truss design
As an example of an engineering design problem, the ten-bar truss optimization shown in Figure 7
was explored. The design objective was to nd cross sectional areas of truss members, X
i
by
minimizing the total weight of a structure W(X
i
) subjected to stress constraints (Haftka and
Grdal 1993). The constraint is imposed such that each members tensile or compressive stress
should not exceed 25 kips under two static loadings of 1000 lb. For the 9th member, the stress
allowable is 75 ksi. As problem parameters, Youngs modulus of the truss is 1.0 10
4
psi, and
the material density is 0.1 lb/in
3
.
The optimization statement is written as follows:
Minimize
W(X
i
) (4)
Figure 7. Ten-bar planar truss.
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Engineering Optimization 1379
subject to

Lower
j

j

Upper
j
, j = 1, . . . , 10
X
lower
i
= 0.1 X
i
X
upper
i
= 10.0, i = 1, . . . , 10, (unit = in
2
),
where
j
is a stress acting on the jth truss member, and Lower and Upper denote the lower and
upper bounds on the design variables, respectively.
5. Results and discussion
Easoms function problem with two design variables was rst tested, and its optimization results
are shown in Table 4. Numerical experiments for all of the test functions were run 10,000 times,
using different initial populations. In terms of objective function value, the proposed method
GARp was better than the simple GA(SGA). When the tail evolution and tail tting schemes were
employed to SGA, GARp +TE +TF still resulted in improved design solutions, as expected (i.e.
comparison between SGA +TE +TF and GARp +TE +TF). GARp and GARp +TE +TF
also provided more reliable solutions in terms of standard deviation. For the number of function
evaluations, GARpprovedtobe more efcient thanSGA. InTable 4, meanTFdenotes the average
number of function evaluations that performed the tail tting scheme. That is, TFrequired a total of
12.8 function evaluations, while SGA +TE +TF identied the solutions after 19395.02 function
evaluations. The ratio of TF to SGA +TE +TF, referred to as the mean TF ratio, was 0.12% in
the Easoms function problem. This indicates that the precision search of TF occupies only 0.12%
of the total function evaluations. When such a precision search is used in the GARp +TE +TF
process, its average number of function evaluations (mean TF) and corresponding mean TF ratio
were more reduced compared to that of SGA +TE +TF, as was expected. The reason for this
considerable difference in the number of function evaluations between GA and GA +TE +TF
is due the fact that a single genetic evolution of TE was conducted using a population size of
6 N
sub
. For an analytical test function problem whose exact global optimum is already known,
such a population size would be too large, and one can simply reduce the value of N
sub
during the
tail evolution scheme. More generally, when unknown functions are to be explored, the adaptive
selection of N
sub
according to the nal elitist could be one of the most signicant issues in the
context of computational cost savings.
The results of Rasrigins function with 10 design variables are shown in Table 5. The proposed
methods of GARp and GARpRe were superior to those of SGA and SGA +TE +TF in terms
of both the mean and standard deviation in the objective function value. The proposed methods
proved advantageous in terms of the number of function evaluations as well. We detected that the
mean TF in SGA was better than that in GARp +TE +TF; however, their average difference
was less than 0.5, almost the same, since the order of function evaluations was O(10
4
).
Table 4. Optimization performance for Easoms function.
Objective function Number of function evaluations
Mean Best value Mean Mean TF Mean TF ratio
SGA 0.70 0.42 1 18494.28
SGA +TE +TF 0.80 0.40 1 19395.02 12.8 0.12%
GARp 0.97 0.17 1 17803.28
GARp +TF 0.97 0.16 1 17874.22 1.22 0.01%
GARp +TE +TF 0.97 0.17 1 18981.25 1.21 0.01%
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1380 N.-S. Kwak and J. Lee
Table 5. Optimization performance for Rastrigins function.
Objective function Number of function evaluations
Mean Best value Mean Mean TF Mean TF ratio
SGA 2.06 1.32 0 33089.92
SGA +TE +TF 1.92 1.27 0 33976.21 4.81 0.01%
GARp 0.27 0.39 0 31895.12
GARp +TF 0.14 0.37 0 31869.07 5.07 0.02%
GARp +TE +TF 0.13 0.36 0 33091.48 5.08 0.02%
Next, Schwefels function problem was tested and its optimization results are summarized in
Table 6. This problem also demonstrated the advantage of the proposed methods in terms of both
objective function value and the number of function evaluations. The results showed that GARp
and GARp +TE +TF generated design solutions with dramatically reduced standard deviations
compared to those of SGA and SGA +TE +TF. Accordingly, the dependence on the use of TF
is attenuated in GARp +TF and GARp +TE +TF.
Similarly, the benets of the proposed methods could be found in cases using Griewangks
function, the sum of different powers function and Ackleys path function, whose optimization
results are summarized in Tables 7, 8, and 9, respectively.
Table 6. Optimization performance for Schwefels function.
Objective function Number of function evaluations
Mean Best value Mean Mean TF Mean TF ratio
SGA 3997.62 122.64 4189.72119 22688.78
SGA +TE +TF 4057.74 117.26 4189.82887 27473.95 4586.96 16.38%
GARp 4188.37 5.01 4189.82781 21581.51
GARp +TF 4189.79 2.05 4189.82887 22298.35 685.67 3.41%
GARp +TE +TF 4189.78 2.37 4189.82887 22754.61 687.88 3.36%
Table 7. Optimization performance for Griewangks function.
Objective function Number of function evaluations
Mean Best value Mean Mean TF Mean TF ratio
SGA 0.26 0.21 0.00002 47611.55
SGA +TE +TF 0.13 0.14 0 48266.45 135.10 0.36%
GARp 0.10 0.10 0.00006 49065.44
GARp +TF 0.08 0.06 0 48983.78 55.37 0.15%
GARp +TE +TF 0.08 0.06 0 49772.12 53.89 0.14%
Table 8. Optimization performance for sum of different power function.
Objective function Number of function evaluations
Mean Best value Mean Mean TF Mean TF ratio
SGA 25025.10 139527.68 0.04659 4353.32
SGA +TE +TF 0 0 0 5814.73 1374.45 28.28%
GARp 132.39 939.39 0.02003 1632.00
GARp +TF 0 0 0 2942.76 1305.02 45.72%
GARp +TE +TF 0 0 0 2991.95 1309.35 45.05%
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Engineering Optimization 1381
Table 9. Optimization performance for Ackleys path function.
Objective function Number of function evaluations
Mean Best value Mean Mean TF Mean TF ratio
SGA 0.63 1.02 0 36213.63
SGA +TE +TF 0.54 0.98 0 36696.63 11.61 0.03%
GARp 0.17 0.26 0.01318 34684.92
GARp +TF 0.04 0.24 0 34737.41 13.88 0.04%
GARp +TE +TF 0.04 0.23 0 35510.85 13.65 0.04%
As a constrained minimization problem, Himmelblaus function was tested in the present study,
and its optimization results are shown in Tables 10 and 11. A constraint handling was formulated
via an exterior penalty method (Haftka and Grdal 1993). The proposed methods of GARp
and GARp +TE +TF were superior to those of the SGA-based methods in terms of the mean
and standard deviation of the objective function value and the number of function evaluations.
Moreover, the TF precision search requires at most 10 function evaluations; the value of ten is
extremely small compared to the total number of function evaluations.
A 10-bar planar truss design problem working with 10 design variables and stress constraint
was also explored, and its solution results are summarized in Tables 12 and 13. Table 12 includes
ve kinds of combinations using SGA, GARp, TE and TF to show the effects of each approach
in a 10-bar truss problem. As shown in Table 13, the best results of ve kinds of combinations
are compared with an exact solution (Haftka and Grdal 1993) and results cited from references
(Andrew 2004, Rodrigo and Jun 2008). It is noted that solutions in a reference (Rodrigo and
Jun 2008) are obtained using the combination of sequential linear programming and GA and
a program, GA-Truss rebirth is used in a reference (Andrew 2004). Some of the proposed
algorithms outrun the existing exact solution, whereas the truss-specialized algorithms do not
reach the exact solutions.
The role of tail evolution (TE) was examined by comparing GARp +TF and GARp +TE +TF
for each of the unconstrained and constrained minimization problems, as shown in Tables 4 to 11.
Tail evolution is derived from the concept of a traditional genetic evolution and can subsequently
provide solution renement to the nal elitist sub-population. But, the effect of the operation is
Table 10. Optimization performance for Himmelblaus function.
Objective function Number of function evaluations
Mean Best value Mean Mean TF Mean TF ratio
SGA 30693.6 144.10 31019.36055 12104.14
SGA +TE +TF 30714.53 143.43 31019.31501 12609.57 11.65 0.17%
GARp 30879.66 74.55 31024.05873 11189.78
GARp +TF 30880.35 74.78 31022.13208 11229.52 1.34 0.01%
GARp +TE +TF 30886.19 73.29 31022.96619 11822.18 4.40 0.04%
Table 11. Best optimized solutions for Himmelblaus function.
x
1
x
2
x
3
x
4
x
5
SGA 78.0 33.041036 27.140694 45.00000 44.753786
SGA +TE +TF 78.0 33.076209 27.123107 44.94724 44.832926
GARp 78.0 33.005862 27.079140 44.97362 44.956033
GARp +TF 78.0 33.05276 27.105520 45.00000 44.868100
GARp +TE +TF 78.0 33.00000 27.096727 45.00000 44.894480
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1382 N.-S. Kwak and J. Lee
Table 12. Optimization performance for ten-bar planar truss.
Objective function Number of function evaluations
Mean Best value Worst value Mean Mean TF Mean TF ratio
SGA 1599.77 45.74 1520.30142 2109.46595 47381.31
SGA +TE +TF 1577.58 39.98 1506.20334 1953.48703 48493.75 67.94 0.17%
GARp 1552.23 21.22 1499.83687 1736.02376 48694.16
GARp +TF 1548.62 20.58 1498.22222 1691.06556 48833.25 12.21 0.03%
GARp +TE +TF 1548.58 20.89 1498.47368 1695.37798 49937.37 12.21 0.03%
Table 13. Best optimized solutions for 10-bar planar truss.
Best design variables
Objective X
1
X
2
X
3
X
4
X
5
X
6
X
7
X
8
X
9
X
10
(Haftka and Grdal 1993) 1499.0 7.900 0.100 8.100 3.900 0.100 0.100 5.800 5.510 3.68 0.140
SGA 1520.3 7.116 0.874 8.839 3.197 0.100 0.874 6.913 4.445 2.916 1.232
SGA +TE +TF 1506.2 7.765 0.235 8.2 3.758 0.100 0.235 5.955 5.374 3.506 0.332
GARp 1499.8 7.842 0.139 8.123 3.855 0.100 0.139 5.829 5.452 3.661 0.197
GARp +TF 1498.2 7.871 0.119 8.094 3.884 0.100 0.119 5.800 5.490 3.642 0.168
GARp +TE +TF 1498.5 7.890 0.100 8.074 3.903 0.100 0.100 5.771 5.519 3.700 0.139
SLP +GA (Rodrigo and Jun
2008)
1509.0 7.900 0.100 8.090 3.900 0.100 0.100 5.780 5.520 3.860 0.130
GA rebirth (Andrew 2004) 1527.0 7.437 0.574 3.437 8.576 0.101 0.576 6.469 4.853 3.230 0.813
slight, since it is imposed to the tails of design variables. Therefore, a designer can get the benets
of TE slightly in terms of the mean and standard deviation of the objective function values. But,
the number of function evaluations grows up for TE. According to the design problem, a designer
can determine whether TE should be included during the renement process. If the precision of
the result is more important than the expense of the function evaluation, TE helps get more precise
designs.
6. Conclusion
One of the signicant features in GA is the ability to rapidly locate the near-optimal design
solutions, since GA analyzes multiple individuals over the entire design space. However, GA
sometimes terminates due to a premature convergence, showing that the randomness in GA
works both positively and negatively. With regard to premature convergence, the present study
suggests a new search process of GARp +TE +TF that efciently recombines individuals in
the population and then renes the nal elitist sub-population based on a forced mutation-like
precision search. Population recombination focuses on how the population and its elitist sub-
population are constructed during evolution. In this process, a whole population consists of three
major sub-populations: the rst is obtained via the simple reproduction of the current generations
elitist sub-population, the second comes from the pure crossover of an elitist sub-population with
another existing sub-population, and third sub-population is a result of a crossover between the
elitist and random sub-populations. The recombination process results from genetic operations
among sub-populations. The objective of elitist renement is to successively improve the nal
elitist sub-population obtained through the recombination process. The renement process has
two schemes: tail evolution and tail ttings. Through a number of unconstrained and constrained
test-bed function problems, the proposed methods of recombination and renement proved that
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Engineering Optimization 1383
their optimization performances are efcient in terms of both the mean and standard deviation of
the objective function value and the number of function evaluations compared to those obtained
from existing GA-based methods. The tail tting scheme is quite exhaustive due to the individual
alteration of binary values, but its corresponding number of function evaluations is very small
compared to the total number of function evaluations.
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Glossary
Elitist sub-population The most highly ranked sub-population from P-New. The size is
2 N
sub
.
Elitist-variants A randomly generated population seeded from the nal elitist. It was
used as an initial population in the tail evolution scheme. The size is
6 N
sub
.
Final elitist The ttest design obtained from the recombination process, GARp.
Fittest-variant The ttest design from the tail evolution process.
GARp Proposed genetic algorithm due to population recombination.
GARp +TE +TF Proposed genetic algorithm due to population recombination and elitist
renement.
P1 The ttest sub-population from P-New consisting of P1-Lower and
P1-Upper. The size is 2 N
sub
.
P1-Lower The lower-ranked half of the sub-population in P1. The size is N
sub
.
P1-Random Randomly generated sub-population whose size was N
sub
. This was
matched to P1-Upper in order to conduct a crossover.
P1-Upper The upper-ranked half of the sub-population in P2. The size is N
sub
.
P2 Resulting sub-population from crossover between P1-Lower and
P1-Upper. The size is 2 N
sub
.
P3 Resulting sub-population from crossover between P1-Random and
P1-Upper. The size is 2 N
sub
.
P-New The sum of P1, P2 and P3. This was used as an updated population after
initialization. The size is 6 N
sub
.
N
sub
A user-specied integer indicating the basic sub-population size.
Recombination A process that consists of evolved sub-populations.
Renement A process that renes the nal elitist.
Sub-chromosome(s) A part of a string of chromosomes.
Tail evolution A single generation of evolution that experiences reproduction and
crossover using elitist-variants.
Tail tting A mutation-like precision search starting from the nal elitist or
ttest-variant.
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