Author(s)

S. Kravanja

Abstract

The paper presents the Mixed-Integer Non-linear Programming optimization approach (MINLP) to structural synthesis. The MINLP is a combined discrete/continuous optimization technique, where discrete binary 0-1 variables are defined for optimization of discrete alternatives and continuous variables for optimization of parameters. The MINLP optimization to structural synthesis is performed through three steps: i.e. the generation of a mechanical superstructure, the modelling of an MXNLP model formulation and the solution of the defined MINLP problem. As the discrete/continuous optimization problems are usually non-convex and highly non-linear, the Modified Outer- ApproxirnatiordEquality-Relaxation (ONER) algorithm is selected to be used for the optimization. The accompanied Linked Multilevel Hierarchical Strategy (LMHS) is developed to accelerate the converg

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