Optimum design of three-dimensional steel structures using artificial bee colony algorithm

Over the past few years, swarm intelligence based optimization techniques such as ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization have received considerable attention from researchers. These algorithms have been used in the solution of various engineering problems. This study presents an Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm (ABC) technique for discrete optimization of planer steel frames and space steel frames. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of algorithm, four problems including space frame problem with up to 168 members and 20 design variables were solved and results were compared with those obtained using other well-known meta-heuristic search techniques. The results demonstrate that the artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) is very effective and robust for planer steel frames and space steel frame design.