Most real world engineering design problems, such as cross-country water mains, include combinations of continuous, discrete, and binary value decision variables. Very often, the binary decision variables associate with the presence and/or absence of some nominated alternatives or project’s components. This study extends an existing continuous Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to simultan...

This paper aims to find the efficient state of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) by simultaneous optimization of the control strategy and the power train. The power transmission employed in this vehicle is a power-split continuously variable transmission (CVT) which uses several fixed ratio mechanisms. After describing this transmission, the rules of electric assist control strategy are introduced....

Over the past decades, several techniques have been employed to improve the applicability of the metaheuristic optimization methods. One of the solutions for improving the capability of metaheuristic methods is the hybrid of algorithms. This study proposes a new optimization algorithm called HPBA which is based on the hybrid of two optimization algorithms; Big Bang-Big Crunch (BB-BC) inspired b...

In this paper, a combinatorial reverse auction mechanism is proposed for selecting the most efficient service-providers for resolving sustained power interruptions in multiple regions of an electric power distribution company’s responsibility area. Through this mechanism, supplying the required service in each region is assigned to only one potential service-provider considering two criteria in...

In the past few decades, there is increasing trend to use products from natural resources. Dyes obtained from natural sources are among such products. The present research mainly focuses on optimization of extraction conditions during a natural dye extraction from the flower petals of a tree ‘Flame of Forest’. Taguchi technique was employed for optimization of the parameters namely raw dyestuff...

This paper describes the impact of the distance and the size of the corona ring, on the magnitude anddistribution of electrical potential across the polymer insulators. The procedure is based on finiteelement method numerical analysis and stochastic optimization algorithm of differential evolution(DE). The optimal selection of corona ring has a significant impact on the control of potential and...

Optimal distribution substation placement is one of the major components of optimal distribution system planning projects. In this paper optimal substation placement problem is solved using Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) as a new developed heuristic optimization algorithm. This procedure gives the optimal size, site and installation time of medium voltage substation, using their relate...