Author(s)

J. Cai and G. Thierauf

Abstract

The basic concepts of two search methods in structural optimization, genetic al- gorithms and evolution strategies, are introduced. These methods require only information of function-values. Because of their simple search mechanisms, they are well suited for wide classes of optimization problems . The increasing avail- ability of high-speed and parallel computing caused a renewed interest in these zero-order methods, in particular in Monte-Carlo techniques, genetic algorithms and evolution strategies, which are described herein. 1 Introduction Since more than thirty years mathematical programming has become a standard tool for structural optimization. Initially, methods which used only local information of the functions and which required no

Keywords