A hybrid GA–PSO approach for reliability optimization in redundancy allocation problem

Abstract

This paper presents a novel hybrid genetic algorithm (GA)-particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach for reliability redundancy allocation problem (RRAP) in series, series–parallel, and complex (bridge) systems. The proposed approach maximizes overall system reliability while minimizing system cost, system weight and volume, simultaneously, under nonlinear constraints. To meet these objectives, an adaptive hybrid GA–PSO approach is developed to identify the optimal solutions and improve computation efficiency for these NP-hard problems. An illustrative example is applied to show the capability and effectiveness of the proposed approach. According to the results, in all three cases, reliability values are improved. Moreover, computational time and variance are decreased compared to the similar studies. The proposed approach could be helpful for engineers and managers to better understand their system reliability and performance, and also to reach a better configuration.