Optimal parameters and performance of artificial bee colony algorithm for minimum cost design of reinforced concrete frames

This study investigates the effect of controlling parameters on the performance of an artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm in the optimum design of reinforced concrete frames under combination loads according to the ACI318-08 building code requirements for structural concrete. The objective function is the total cost of reinforced concrete frames, which consists of concrete cost, reinforcing bars cost, and formwork cost. The cross section of structure, diameter, and number of reinforcing bars are considered as the design variables. The effect of the number of bees, food source quantities, trial limit, and stopping condition on the cost design are studied and presented with statistical results. Three design examples are collected from related literature to evaluating the performance of ABC algorithm. The results demonstrate that the number of trial limits is critical to the quality of food source, while the numbers of bees, food sources, and trial limits impact the obtained optimum solution and usage time. The statistical results reveal that when the food source quantities are lower than the number of bees, ABC algorithm provides high performance for all the design examples.