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Journal of Manufacturing Systems 32 (2013) 197205

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Journal of Manufacturing Systems

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Technical Paper

Normal-boundary intersection based parametric multi-objective optimization of green sand mould system
T. Ganesan a , P. Vasant b, , I. Elamvazuthi c
a

Chemical Engineering Department, University Technology Petronas, Malaysia Fundamental & Applied Sciences Department, University Technology Petronas, Malaysia c Electrical & Electronic Engineering Department, University Technology Petronas, Malaysia
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
In manufacturing engineering optimization, it is often that one encounters scenarios that are multiobjective (where each of the objectives portray different aspects of the problem). Thus, it is crucial for the engineer to have access to multiple solution choices before selecting of the best solution. In this work, a novel approach that merges meta-heuristic algorithms with the Normal Boundary Intersection (NBI) method is introduced. This method then is used generate optimal solution options to the green sand mould system problem. This NBI based method provides a near-uniform spread of the Pareto frontier in which multiple solutions with gradual trade-offs in the objectives are obtained. Some comparative studies were then carried out with the algorithms developed and used in this work and that from some previous work. Analysis on the performance as well as the quality of the solutions produced by the algorithms is presented here. 2012 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 27 April 2012 Received in revised form 26 October 2012 Accepted 30 October 2012 Available online 20 November 2012 Keywords: Multi-objective (MO) Green sand mould system Normal Boundary Intersection (NBI) Genetic algorithm (GA) Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) Uniform spread Pareto frontier

1. Introduction Most issues encountered when dealing with emerging technologies in engineering are multi-objective (MO) in nature [1,2]. Strategies in multi-objective optimization (MO) can be crudely classied into two classes. First being methods that use the concept of Pareto optimality to trace the non-dominated solutions at the Pareto curve (for instance, Zitzler and Thieles [3] Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm (SPEA) and Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) by Deb et al. [4]). The other type of methods is known as the weighted (or scalarization) techniques. In these methods, the objective functions in the problem are aggregated into a single objective function which is then solved for various scalar (weight) values. Some known scalarization techniques include the Weighted Sum method [5,6], Goal Programming [7] and Normal-Boundary Intersection (NBI) method [8]. Using these techniques, the scalars (or weights) are used to consign relative trade-offs to the objectives during the aggregation procedure. Hence, alternative near-optimal solution options are generated for various values of the scalars. A unique and ideal solution that explains all the features of a MO problem in engineering are rarely encountered [9,10]. Nevertheless

Corresponding author. E-mail address: vasant0001@yahoo.com (P. Vasant).

in more practical scenarios, the decision maker (DM) is only interested in a single optimal solution. To select this unique optimum, the DM utilizes some supplementary knowledge which is usually very heuristic and too complex to be represented mathematically [11]. Therefore, it is very useful for the DM to have access to numerous solution options with a variety of signicance with respect to the objectives prior to the selection the best optimal solution. See [1,12,13] for more detail investigations and explanations on MO techniques in engineering optimization. In optimization problems of this kind, it is required that the solution method caters for the multiobjective nature of the problem. Thus, in this work the MO issue is tackled using the NBI method for geometrical trade-offs of the weights while the GA-PSO is used to iteratively improve the solutions for each respective weight. This work aims to generate a series of Pareto-optimal solutions that obtain a near-complete trade-off among the objective functions for the green mould sand system. This problem was presented and solved in Surekha et al. [14] by the application of genetic algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) techniques in conjunction with the Weighted Sum approach. The difference between sand mould and green sand mould is that green sand mould has green compression strength, permeability, hardness and bulk density requirements where as sand mould has the same properties without the green constraints. In green mould systems, the quality of the product obtained from the moulding process is very dependent on the physical properties of the

0278-6125/$ see front matter 2012 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2012.10.004

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198 T. Ganesan et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 32 (2013) 197205

moulding sand (such as hardness, permeability, green compression strength and bulk density). Incorrect proportions of the mentioned properties may lead to casting defects such as poor surface nish, blowholes, scabs and pinhole porosity. Controllable variables such as percentage of water, percentage of clay, grain neness number and number of strokes heavily inuence the physical properties of the moulded sand. Hence, by characterizing these parameters as the decision variables and the mould sand properties as the objective function, the MO optimization problem was formulated in Surekha et al. [14]. The purpose of this formulation is for the identication of best controllable parameters for optimal nal-product of the moulding process. A more comprehensive study on the optimization and model formulation of mould systems can be seen in [15,16]. In this work, the green mould sand system is optimized further using genetic algorithms (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and a hybrid GA-PSO in conjunction with the Normal Boundary Intersection (NBI) method to generate a series of Pareto-optimal solutions. Comparison studies were then performed on the optimal solutions obtained in this work against those obtained in Surekha et al. [14]. Genetic algorithms (GA) were introduced by Holland in the nineties [17]. GAs belong to the group of stochastic search methods (such as simulated annealing [18] and some forms of branch and bound). While most stochastic search techniques operate on a distinct solution for a particular problem, GAs operates on a population of solutions. In recent times, GAs have been widely applied in engineering scenario (see [19,20]). For a more comprehensive text on GAs refer to [21]. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is an optimization method developed based on the movement and intelligence of swarms. PSO was developed by Kennedy and Eberhart [22] in 1995. Lately, PSO has been applied to a variety of areas including optimization problems in engineering [23] as well as economic dispatch problems. Many works have done on the application of meta-heuristic techniques for modelling and optimization of manufacturing systems [2426]. This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 of this paper, the standard meta-heuristic techniques are presented, and this is followed by description on the Scalarisation Technique and Proposed Algorithms in Section 3. The real world application problem on green sand mould system is illustrated in Section 4. Section 5 discusses computational results and nally, the concluding remarks are given in Section 6. 2. Standard meta-heuristic techniques 2.1. Genetic algorithm (GA) A genetic algorithm (GA) was applied in conjunction to the NBI approach for the MO optimization of the green sand mould system. GAs are categorized as a class of population-based search and optimization algorithms [27,28]. An N-point crossover operator was used to create new offspring for each successive generation. To avoid the solution from getting stagnant at the local minima, an N-bit ip mutation operator was used. 2.2. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) The PSO algorithm introduced in 1995 (by Kennedy and Eberhart [22]) springs from two distinct frames of ideas. The rst concept was based on the examination of swarming (or ocking) behaviours of certain species of organisms (such as birds, ants, bees and reies). The second idea was sprung from the study of evolutionary computations. The PSO algorithm searches the search space for candidate solutions and evaluates these solutions with respect to

some (user specied) tness condition. The candidate optimal solutions obtained by this algorithm are achieved as a result of particles which are in motion (swarming) through the tness landscape. In the beginning, some candidate solutions are selected by the PSO algorithm. These solutions can be randomly selected or be established with the aid of some a priori facts. Next, the evaluation of the particles position and velocity (which are also the candidate solutions) relative to the tness function is carried out. Consequently, in conjunction with the tness function a condition is introduced; where if the tness function is not fullled, then the algorithm updates the individual and social terms by the aid of a user-specied update rule. Following this, the velocity and the position of the particles are updated. This recursive course of action is iterated until the tness function is satised by all candidate solutions and solutions have thus converged into a x position. It is essential to note that the velocity and position updating rule is critical to the optimization capabilities of this method. The velocity of each particle in motion (swarming) is updated using the following equation.

vi (t + 1) = wvi (t ) + c1 r1 [ xi (t ) xi (t )] + c2 r2 [g (t ) xi (t )]

(1)

where each particle is identied by the index i, vi (t) is the particle velocity and xi (t) is the particle position with respect to iteration (t). The parameters w, c1 , c2 , r1 and r2 are usually dened by the user. 3. Scalarisation Technique and Proposed Algorithms 3.1. Scalarisation technique: Normal Boundary Intersection (NBI) method The NBI method was rst introduced by Das and Dennis [8]. This method is a geometrically inspired scalarization approach for solving MO problems. In contrast to the Weighted Sum method, the NBI approach has the ability to nd a near-uniform spread of Pareto-optimal solution options in the frontier. This makes the NBI approach a more interesting alternative as compared to the Weighted Sum method when solving non-convex MO problem. The green mould system problem is presented as the following: Min F (x) subject to X = {x : g (x) = 0; h(x) 0, 1 x 4}
, f , f , f ) F = (f1 2 3 4 T

(2)

where F* is the utopia point for this MO problem. Let the individual and be obtained for i [1, 4]. The convex minimum be denoted as xi hull of the individual minima is generated in this fashion. Thus, the representation of the simplex from the convex hull is as follows: ={ Y :
= F (xi );

Y = i : 1 x 4}
4

(3)

= 1. The formulation of where forms a 4 by 4 matrix and i=1 i the NBI -sub problem is as the following: Max(X,t ) t subject to xX (4)

Y + tn = F (x) and

where t is some dened distance parameter, and n is the normal vector at the point towards the utopia point. The NBI scalarization method nds the maximum distance, t in the direction of the normal vector, n between a point on the simplex and the origin (or the utopia point). Next, the scalarization is carried out. The scalars, Y are varied thoroughly to generate a near-uniform spread of the Pareto frontier. The procedures of which this method is executed are as follows:

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T. Ganesan et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 32 (2013) 197205 Table 1 Genetic algorithm (GA) settings. Parameters Length of individual string No. of individuals in the population Probability of mutation Probability of recombination Initial string of individuals Bit type of individuals string Cross-over type Mutation type Selection type Values 6 bit 6 0.3333 0.5 Random Real-coded N-point N-bit ip Tournament 199

Step 3: By recombination from the current population, create offspring for the next generation. Step 4: Mutate offspring for this generation. Step 5: The parent selection to create the next generation is done by tournament selection. Step 6: The next population of n individuals is chosen. Step 7: Set new population to current population. Step 8: Assess the tness of each offspring in the generation. Step 9: If the stopping criterion are satised halt program and print solutions, else go to Step 3. Algorithm 2. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)

The MO maximization problem is reformulated as a minimization problem by inverting the objective functions. Obtain the local minima of individual objective functions. The multi-objective (MO) problem is then reformulated as a single-objective -sub problem by using the value of the local optimums. The single-objective -sub problem is then solved. The inverse transformation is then performed to re-obtain the best maximal values of the objective functions. The Pareto front for multiple scalarization values of is obtained. The optimal value of the solutions is then selected from the obtained Pareto front. Thus, the single-objective -sub problem is solved using GA, PSO or the hybrid GA-PSO where these algorithms are termed as NBIPSO (NPSO), NBIGA (NGA) and NBI Hybrid GA-PSO (NHPSO). Algorithm 1. Genetic algorithm (GA)

These parameter settings for this algorithm are usually constrained as the following: 0 w 1.2 0 c1 2 0 c2 2 0 r1 1 0 r2 1 The term wvi (t) in Eq. (1) (also referred to as the inertial term) maintains the particles motion in the same direction as its original vector. The inertial coefcient w serves as a dampener or an accelerator during the movement of the particles. The term c1 r1 [ xi (t ) xi (t )] better known as the cognitive component functions serves as the memory. This component ensures that the particle tends to return to the position in the search space where the particle had a very high value of the tness function. The term c2 r2 [g (t ) xi (t )] (also known as the social component) function as mover of the particles to the position where the swarm has visited in the previous iterations. Next, the particles position is then computed as is shown in the following: xi (t + 1) = xi (t ) + vi (t + 1) (6) (5)

The GA scheme applied in this work is as the following. The parameter settings initialized prior to the execution of the GA used in this work are shown in Table 1. The owchart of the GA algorithm is shown in Fig. 1. Step 1: Initialize a random chromosome for n individuals in the population. Step 2: Assign tness conditions to each of the n individuals in the population.

Until all candidate solutions are at their highest tness positions and the termination criterion is satised, these iterations are then

START Fitness criterions are assigned to each of the n individuals. Generate offspring by crossover/recombination

Randomly initialize a population of n individuals.

Offspring Mutation

NO Set new population to current population Evaluate offspring fitness Termination criterion satisfied? YES

Perform parent selection

STOP

Fig. 1. Algorithm ow for GA.

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sustained. The algorithm of the PSO method used in this work is shown as follows: Step 1: Set number of particles, i and the initialize parameter settings w, c1 , c2 , r1 , r2 , no Step 2: Randomly initialize particles position xi (n) and velocity vi (n) Step 3: Calculate inertial and social components of the particles Step 4: Compute position xi (n + 1) and velocity vi (n + 1) of the particles at next iteration Step 5: If the swarm evolution time, n > no + T, update position xi and velocity vi and go to Step 3, else proceed to Step 6 Step 6: Proceed with the evaluation of the tness of each particle in the swarm.

Step 7: If the tness conditions are satised, stop program and print solutions, else go to Step 3.

where no is some constant, n is the swarm iteration and T is the overall program iteration. However, in the event during this iterative process the position of all the particles converges, the solutions are feasible with respect to the specied ranges, no further optimization of the objective function occurs and all the decision variables are non-negative (for the problem at hand) then it can be said that the tness criterion are met. Hence the candidate solutions are at their ttest and the program is stopped and the solutions are printed. The initialization parameters for this algorithm is shown in Table 2 and the workow is provided in Fig. 2.

START

Initialize no of particles, i

Initialize algorithm parameters

Randomly initialize position xi(n) and velocity vi(n) n = n +1

Compute inertial and social influence

T = T +1

Compute position xi(n+1) and velocity vi(n+1) at next iteration

NO Is fitness criterion satisfied? YES Evaluate fitness of the swarms YES Is n > no+T ? NO

STOP
Fig. 2. Algorithm ow for PSO.

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T. Ganesan et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 32 (2013) 197205 Table 2 Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) settings. Parameters Initial parameter (c1 , c2 , r1 , r2 , w) Number of particles Initial social inuence (s1 , s2 , s3 , s4 , s5 , s6 ) Initial personal inuence (p1 , p2 , p3 , p4 , p5 , p6 ) Values (1, 1.2, 0.5, 0.5, 0.8) 6 (1.1, 1.05, 1.033, 1.025, 1.02, 1.017) (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) 201

Step 14: If the swarm evolution time, n > no + T, update position xi and velocity vi and go to Step 12, else proceed to Step 6 Step 15: Evaluate tness swarm based on the objective function of the -sub problem for each scalarization. Step 16: If tness criterion satised, halt and print solutions, else go to Step 12.

4. Application data Algorithm 3. Hybrid GA-PSO The responses of the mould heavily inuence the quality of the nal product of the green sand mould system. In Surekha et al. [14], these responses are represented mathematically as the objective functions. The responses are; green compression strength (f1 ), permeability (f2 ), hardness (f3 ) and bulk density (f4 ). These objectives on the other hand are inuenced by on the process (or decision) variables which are; the grain neness number (A), percentage of clay content (B), percentage of water content (C) and number of strokes (D). The objective functions and the range of the decision variables are shown as follows: f1 = 17.2527 1.7384A 2.7463B + 32.3203C + 6.575D + 0.014A2 + 0.0945B2 7.7857C 2 1.2079D2 + 0.0468AB 0.1215AC 0.0451AD + 0.5516BC + 0.6378BD + 2.689CD) (7)

The hybrid GA-PSO in this work was developed by using both techniques at different sections of the NBI approach. As mentioned in the introduction section, meta-heuristic techniques (such as GA and PSO) can be incorporated into the NBI approach at two segments. First being the use of these techniques as a tool to search for the local minima of the individual objective functions. Secondly, using these techniques for solving the -sub problem by varying the weights. In contrast to the pure GA and PSO approach (where both segments in the NBI approach are embedded with the PSO or GA technique), the hybrid approach uses GA to nd the local minima and PSO for solving the -sub problem. The parameter settings in the hybrid method are identical to the settings employed in the pure methods. The hybridization procedure in Fig. 3 shows the mechanism of placement of the GA and PSO algorithms in the NBI sections. The algorithm for the hybrid GA-PSO approach is as the following: Step 1: Initialize a random chromosome for n individuals in the population. Step 2: Assign tness conditions to each of the n individuals in the population. Step 3: By recombination from the current population, create offspring for the next generation. Step 4: Mutate offspring for this generation. Step 5: The parent selection to create the next generation is done by tournament selection. Step 6: The next population of n individuals is chosen. Step 7: Set new population = current population. Step 8: Assess the tness of each offspring in the generation. Step 9: If the stopping criterion are satised halt program and print solutions, else go to Step 3. Step 10: Set no of particles, i and the initialize parameter settings w, c1 , c2 , r1 , r2 , no Step 11: Randomly initialize particles position xi (n) and velocity vi (n) Step 12: Calculate inertial and social components of the particles Step 13: Compute position xi (n + 1) and velocity vi (n + 1) at next iteration

f2 = 1192.51 15.98A 35.66B + 9.51C 105.66D + 0.07A2 + 0.45B2 4.13C 2 + 4.22D2 + 0.11AB + 0.2AC + 0.52AD + 1.19BC + 1.99BD 3.1CD (8)

f3 = 38.2843 0.0494A + 2.4746B + 7.8434C + 7.774D + 0.001A2 0.00389B2 1.6988C 2 0.6556D2 0.0015AB 0.0151AC 0.0006AD 0.075BC 0.1938BD + 0.65CD (9)

f4 = 1.02616 + 0.01316A 0.00052B 0.06845C + 0.0083D 0.00008A2 + 0.0009B2 + 0.0239C 2 0.00107D2 0.00004AB 0.00018AC + 0.00029AD 0.00302BC 0.00019BD 0.00186CD (10)

52 A 94 8 B 12 1.5 C 3 3D5 To obtain the size distributions of the silica sand and the grain neness number, sieve analysis tests were carried out in Parappagoudar et al. [29]. Similarly, the authors also conducted gelling index tests for the determination the strength of clay. Next, experiments were conducted by varying the combination of the parameters using the central composite design. The mathematical model of the green mould system was developed where; the objective functions as given in Eqs. (7)(10) and the constraints as given (11)

Fig. 3. Flow of the pure and hybrid GA and PSO techniques in the NBI method.

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Table 3 The comparison of the best solutions obtained by the algorithms. Description Algorithms GA [14] Objective function 54.9377 f1 53.679 f2 89.4473 f3 f4 1.5888 Decision variable 93.9998 A 11.9999 B C 2.6546 D 4.9998 PSO [14] 55.4112 107.895 84.7936 1.5079 52.0001 11.9998 2.8452 4.9999 NGA 61.5992 60.2611 89.0263 1.58366 73.3421 11.9024 2.05415 4.00906 NPSO 61.3174 120.022 88.8441 1.51525 54.5778 11.574 2.54539 4.18636 NHPSO 58.2195 135.478 88.3809 1.50958 52.7462 11.9231 2.1876 3.80256

in Eq. (11). The MO optimization problem statement for the green mould system problem is shown as follows: Max(f1 , f2 , f3 , f4 ) subject to 52 A 94 8 B 12 1.5 C 3 3D5 The algorithms used in this work were programmed using the C++ programming language on a personal computer (PC) with an Intel dual core processor running at 2 GHz. 5. Results and discussion The comparison of the best candidate solutions obtained by the NBI-Genetic Algorithm (NGA), NBI-Particle Swarm Optimization (NPSO) and the NBI-hybrid GA and PSO (HNPSO) methods in this work and by the PSO and GA methods (Weighted-Sum) in Surekha et al. [14] is shown in Table 3. The Pareto frontiers of the objectives obtained by the NGA method are presented in Fig. 4. The best solution candidate in Table 3 was obtained by the NGA method at the weights (objective function trade-offs) (12)

(1 , 2 , 3 4 ) = (0.4, 0.1, 0.4, 0.1). The best solution candidate obtained by the NPSO method at the weights (objective function trade-offs) (1 , 2 , 3 4 ) = (0.1, 0.4, 0.2, 0.3). In Table 3 the solution was obtained by the NPSO method at the weights (objective function trade-offs) (1 , 2 , 3 4 ) = (0.1, 0.1, 0.5, 0.3). The Pareto frontiers of the objectives obtained by the NGA, NPSO and NHPSO methods are presented in Figs. 46, respectively. It can be observed in Table 3 that the NGA and NPSO methods outperform the GA and PSO method from Surekha et al. [14]. However, a new optima is achieved by the NPSO method (see Table 3) since it outperforms the NGA method. The NHPSO method compromises on the objectives f1 , f3 and f4 while maximizing the objective f2 very effectively. Thus, it can be said that the NPSO method in this work outweighs the overall optimization capabilities of NHPSO and NGA. The computational time taken for the algorithms in the previous work (see Surekha et al. [14]) for the GA and PSO are, respectively, 0.021 and 0.013 s. In this work, the computational time taken for the NGA, NSPO and the NHPSO algorithms are 282.404, 21.683 and 31.48 s respectively. In Surekha et al. [14], the GA and the PSO method was used in conjunction with the Weighted Sum method on an Intel Pentium IV processor (single core). As mentioned previously, the algorithms presented in this work: NGA, NPSO, and NHPSO were executed on an Intel dual-core processor which is more superior than the machine used in Surekha et al. [14]. However, it can be seen that the computational time for NGA, NPSO and NHPSO algorithms are far greater as compared to the GA and PSO in [14]. Although the algorithms NGA, NPSO and NHPSO are executed on a superior machine, these algorithms seem to be computationally inferior as compared to the GA and PSO [14] algorithms. This can be mainly attributed to the complexity of the NBI scheme which is incorporated into the algorithms presented in this work. The NBI scheme (see Methodology Section A) requires the application of the algorithms twice, rst to obtain the individual optima then to solve the -sub problems for each of the scalarization. Thus, although the NGA, NPSO and NHPSO may produce excellent results, it does compromise in terms of computational due to the complexity of the algorithm. It is also observed similar to the results in Surekha et al. [14], the NPSO performs better and computationally more efcient as compared

Fig. 4. Pareto frontiers of the objectives obtained by the NGA method.

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Fig. 5. Pareto frontiers of the objectives obtained by the NPSO method.

to the NGA algorithm. Due to the incorporation of the GA segment in the NHPSO, thus it is computationally more expensive than the NPSO but more efcient than the NGA. In Surekha et al. [14], the Weighted Sum method produces a progression of Pareto efcient solutions although the spread of solutions are not well distributed. In this work, using the NBI method, the spread of Pareto efcient solutions are near-uniformly spaced. The spread of the Pareto efcient solutions are vital in MO scenarios. This is because a uniform solution spread gives a more gradual change in the relative signicance of the objectives

in the alternative solutions. However, both methods (NBI and Weighted Sum) do not guarantee Pareto optimality (only in the weak sense [30]). The NGA, NPSO and NHPSO algorithms performed stable computations during the search of the individual minima as and while solving the -sub problems. The stopping criteria used in the algorithms used in this work was the maximum number of function evaluations (which was pre-dened to 50). All Pareto-efcient solutions produced by the algorithms developed in this work were feasible and no constraints were compromised.

Fig. 6. Pareto frontiers of the objectives obtained by the NHPSO method.

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The advantages of using the NPSO algorithm as compared to the other algorithms used in this work is that it produces highly effective results in terms of optimization of the parameters. Besides, among the algorithms used in this work it can be said that the NPSO has the lowest execution time. However, although the NPSO performs well relative to algorithms used in this work, it can be clearly seen that the execution time is much higher than the one obtained by Surekha et al. [14] using the Weighted-Sum method. The NGA method can be said to be the second best optimizer as compared to the NPSO method. Since the NGA method uses an evolutionary background the diversication of the search space is high and thus resulting in high computational time as compared with the NPSO and NHPSO. Besides, in comparison with the NHPSO algorithm the NGA method produces much superior results. As for the NHPSO, this hybrid is high in terms of algorithmic complexity and due to the GA component is performs inferior to NPSO method in terms of computational time. However, the effectiveness of the overall optimization of all the objectives is not as satisfactory as the NGA or the NPSO method. This method optimizes the second objective to a very high degree while compromising on the other objectives. Thus, it also performs poorly in terms of the overall optimization as compared with the NGA and NPSO methods. 6. Conclusions In this work, a new local maximum was achieved using the NPSO method. More Pareto-efcient solution options to the green mould system MO optimization problem were obtained. Besides, using the NGA, NPSO and NHPSO algorithms, the solution spread of the frontier was near-uniformly distributed. This work also produces results of testing the green mould sand problem with a hybrid algorithm. In the future, other meta-heuristic algorithms such as Genetic Programming (GP) [31], Analytical Programming (AP) [32], Hybrid Neuro-GP [33], Hybrid Neuro-PSO [34], Hybrid Tabu [35], MO evolutionary algorithm [36,37] and Articial Immune Systems (AIS) [38,39] should be applied in conjunction with the NBI method. During these numerical experiments, the spacing metric should be measured and compared for the observation the uniformity of the spreads with respect to the algorithms. Besides, convergence and diversity metrics should also be utilized to compare the performance of the algorithms. More large-scale MO problems should be studied using the NGA, NPSO and NHPSO method for a better understanding of the mentioned algorithms performance and efciency. Acknowledgements This work was supported by STIRF Grant (STIRF CODE NO: 90/10.11) of University Technology Petronas (UTP), Malaysia. The authors sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments and suggestions for the improvement of this research paper. References
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