Construction cost minimisation of the stepped spillway using improved particle swarm optimisation and artificial bee colony algorithms

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, the improved artificial bee colony (IABC) and improved particle swarm optimisation (IPSO) have been used for the optimal design of stepped spillway with the minimisation of construction cost as the energy dissipater structure for a dam project. Generally, the construction cost of this structure is the most expensive part of the project. However, traditional designing methods of stepped spillway such as the Vittal and Porey (VP) approach cannot find optimal dimensions of the stepped spillway with minimum cost. Therefore, the optimisation methods such as meta‐heuristic algorithms have been used. As a case study, Tehri dam’s stepped spillway in India has been considered here and the optimal dimensions of this spillway have been obtained using IPSO, IABC algorithms and the results have been compared with VP approach and other available results. Comparison of the results shows that when the three‐stepped spillway is considered, the results of IABC and IPSO algorithms are improved by 17.72% in comparison with VP results. In addition, when the four‐stepped spillway is considered, the results of IABC, IPSO algorithms are, respectively, improved by 16.47% and 16.53% in comparison with the VP results.