Topology optimization of structures using modified binary differential evolution

Differential evolution (DE) is an efficient population based algorithm used to solve real-valued optimization problems. It has the advantage of incorporating relatively simple and efficient mutation and crossover operators. However, the DE operator is based on floating-point representation only, and is difficult to use when solving combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper, a modified binary differential evolution (MBDE) based on a binary bit-string framework with a simple and new binary mutation mechanism is proposed. Two test functions are applied to verify the MBDE framework with the new binary mutation mechanism, and four structural topology optimization problems are used to study the performance of the proposed MBDE algorithm. The experimental studies show that the proposed MBDE algorithm is not only suitable for structural topology optimization, but also has high viability in terms of solving numerical optimization problems.