MODULAR OPTIMIZATION STRATEGY FOR LAYOUT PROBLEMS

Layout design optimization has a significant impact in the design and use of many engineering products and systems. The search of an optimal layout configuration is a hard and critical task and designers need specific optimization strategies to achieve it. These strategies have to be generic to be adapted to a maximum of layout problems and a maximum of designer’s requirements. These strategies have also to be effective in the search of optimal solutions without being too time consuming. Then, this paper proposes a modular optimization strategy based on the genetic algorithm. This strategy is adapted to multi-objective layout problems, when the designer has to make a final decision on optimal solutions. The optimization modules are used in order to make the search of feasible designs easier, by taking into account the specificities of layout problems