Optimal design of arch dams subjected to earthquake loading by a combination of simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation and particle swarm algorithms

An efficient optimization procedure is introduced to find the optimal shapes of arch dams considering fluid–structure interaction subject to earthquake loading. The optimization is performed by a combination of simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation (SPSA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms. This serial integration of the two singlemethods is termed as SPSA–PSO. The operation of SPSA–PSO includes three phases. In the first phase, a preliminary optimization is accomplished using the SPSA. In the secondphase, an optimal initial swarm is producedusing the first phase results. In the last phase, the PSO is employed to find the optimum design using the optimal initial swarm. The numerical results demonstrate the high performance of the proposed strategy for optimal design of arch dams. The solutions obtained by the SPSA–PSO are compared with those of SPSA and PSO. It is revealed that the SPSA–PSO converges to a superior solution compared to the SPSA and PSO having a lower computation cost. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.