An improved firefly algorithm with harmony search scheme for optimization of water distribution systems

Authors

1 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Amirkabir University of ‎Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), 424 Hafez Ave, Tehran, Iran‎

2 Centre of Excellence for Fundamental Studies in Structural Engineering, Iran University ‎of Science and Technology, Tehran, Narmak, P.O. Box 16846-13114, Iran‎

Abstract

In this study, a new hybrid method based on Firefly Algorithm (FA) and Harmony Search (HS) techniques, is presented for solving the least-cost design problem of water distribution systems (WDS). This algorithm is designed to improve the performance of the FA as a recently developed meta-heuristic that mimics the natural behaviour of fireflies. The use of such a nature–inspired optimization method to solve the optimal design problem of WDS needs particular modifications to produce high quality solutions. Therefore, a modification is proposed to the movement stage of artificial fireflies and based on the HS strategy a memory is utilized to save a number of the best solutions. Another improvement in this algorithm contains the addition of pitch adjustment operation in the FA as a mutation operator.The presented method is applied to optimal design of some well-known benchmark problems taken from literature, and the results confirm its validity. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is performed on the parameters of the algorithm.

Keywords

Scientia Iranica
Volume 21, Issue 5
Transactions on Civil Engineering (A)
September and October 2014
Pages 1591-1607

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