An improved weighting method with multibounds formulation and convex programming for multicriteria structural optimization

This paper presents an improved weighting method for multicriteria structural optimization. By introducing artificial design variables, here called as multibounds formulation (MBF), we demonstrate mathematically that the weighting combination of criteria can be transformed into a simplified problem with a linear objective function. This is a unified formulation for one criterion and multicriteria problems. Due to the uncoupling of involved criteria after the transformation, the extension and the adaptation of monotonic approximation-based convex programming methods such as the convex linearization (CONLIN) or the method of moving asymptotes (MMA)are made possible to solve multicriteria problems as efficiently as for one criterion problems. In this work, a multicriteria optimization tool is developed by integrating the multibounds formulation with the CONLIN optimizer and the ABAQUS finite element analysis system. Some numerical examples are taken into account to show the efficiency of this approach.