Journal of Zhejiang University SCIENCE A
ISSN 1673-565X(Print), 1862-1775(Online), Monthly

2008   Vol. 9   No. 9   p. 1264~1269

Optimal design of pressure vessel using an improved genetic algorithm

Peng-fei LIU^†1, Ping XU^†‡2, Shu-xin HAN³, Jin-yang ZHENG¹

(¹Institute of Chemical Machinery and Process Equipment, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China)
(²Institute of Applied Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China)
(³Hangzhou Special Equipment Inspection Institute, Hangzhou 310003, China)
^‡ Corresponding Author
^†E-mail: pfliu1980@yahoo.com; pingxu@zju.edu.cn
Received Mar. 5, 2008; revision accepted May 22, 2008

Abstract: As the idea of simulated annealing (SA) is introduced into the fitness function, an improved genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed to perform the optimal design of a pressure vessel which aims to attain the minimum weight under burst pressure constraint. The actual burst pressure is calculated using the arc-length and restart analysis in finite element analysis (FEA). A penalty function in the fitness function is proposed to deal with the constrained problem. The effects of the population size and the number of generations in the GA on the weight and burst pressure of the vessel are explored. The optimization results using the proposed GA are also compared with those using the simple GA and the conventional Monte Carlo method.

Key words: Pressure vessel, Optimal design, Genetic algorithm (GA), Simulated annealing (SA), Finite element analysis (FEA)
doi:10.1631/jzus.A0820217             CLC number: TH12

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