Optimal cost design with sensitivity analysis using decomposition techniques. Application to composite breakwaters

Minimizing the expected total cost of a structure, including maintenance and construction is a difficult problem because of the presence in the objective function of the yearly failure rates, which have to be calculated by an optimization problem per each failure mode. In this paper, a new method for the design of structures that minimizes the total expected costs of the structure during its lifetime based on Benders’ decomposition is presented. In addition, some tools for sensitivity analysis are introduced, which make it possible to determine how the cost and yearly failure rates of the optimal solution are affected by small changes in the input data values. The proposed method is illustrated by its application to the design of a composite breakwater under breaking and non-breaking wave conditions.