Particle Swarm Optimisation - An Alternative in Marine Propeller Optimisation?

Nature inspired algorithms emerged for the use in automated engineering design optimisations.These are readily applicable but require a significant number of evaluations. The purpose of this paper is two folded: 1) To develop a particle swarm algorithm (PSO) adapted towards multi-objective optimisation and constraint handling for the use in propeller design; 2) To assess optimisation results in a comparable standard. The development of two PSO algorithmsare outlined and tested in optimisations of four different propellers. The results are evaluated by consulting the generation medians and Pareto front development which are compared to a benchmark algorithm