Comparing Two Meta-Heuristic Approaches for Solving Complex System Reliability Optimization

Using meta-heuristic approaches to solve reliability and redundancy allocation problems (RRAP) has become attractive for researchers in recent years. In this paper, an optimization model is presented to maximize system reliability and minimize system cost simultaneously for multi-state weighted k-out-of-n systems. The model tends to optimize system design and maintenance activities over functioning periods that provides a dynamic modeling. A recently developed meta-heuristic approach imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) and genetic algorithm (GA) are used to solve the model. The computational results have been compared to find out which approach is more appropriate for solving complex system reliability optimization models. It is shown that GA can find the better solution while ICA is a faster approach. In addition, an investigation is done on different parameters of the ICA.