Chaotic swarming of particles: A new method for size optimization of truss structures

•A new combination of swarm intelligence and chaos theory is presented for optimal design of truss structures.•This method is a kind of multi-phase optimization technique which employs chaos theory.•Results are compared to those of the other meta-heuristic algorithms showing the efficiency of the new method.

A new combination of swarm intelligence and chaos theory is presented for optimal design of truss structures. Here the tendency to form swarms appearing in many different organisms and chaos theory has been the source of inspiration, and the algorithm is called chaotic swarming of particles (CSP). This method is a kind of multi-phase optimization technique which employs chaos theory in two phases, in the first phase it controls the parameter values of the particle swarm optimization (CPVPSO) and the second phase is utilized for local search (CLSPSO). Some truss structures are optimized using the CSP algorithm, and the results are compared to those of the other meta-heuristic algorithms showing the effectiveness of the new method.