Prof. Pavel Y. Tabakov

Durban University of Technology

Country South Africa

Short biography and link to the website or Research Gate.

Pavel Y. Tabakov graduated from the Kyiv Institute of Civil Engineering, Ukraine, in 1986. He obtained his PhD from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Natal, South Africa, in 1995. He is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Durban University of Technology, South Africa. His areas of research include structural analysis, anisotropic materials and nanocomposites, design optimization analysis of engineering structures using artificial intelligence, and evolutionary algorithms. Besides, he is interested in classifying and clustering data in large, complex multidimensional databases. He is the author and co-author of more than eighty articles in international journals and conferences.

https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=6603110772

Presentation title:

Design Optimization of Complex Laminated Composite Structures Using GA, PSO And Big Bang – Big Crunch Evolutionary Algorithms

Abstract:

It has been obvious through history that the evolution of technology has been controlled by the materials available. It is increasingly so today, and composite materials are among the most demanded. The increased use of such materials and structures in many engineering applications led to the need for a more accurate analysis and design optimization. While most of the major analytical theories were already developed in the last century, there were no reliable design methods for complex laminated composites with the use of an appropriate failure criterion until late 1980's . In fact, a five-layer anisotropic structure was probably a limit of accurate results. Thus, such problems fundamentally required new approaches and techniques. With the advent of evolutionary algorithms, it became possible to open up new multidimensional and complex problems for an accurate design optimization. Nature is striking in its complexity, despite its apparent chaotic appearance; it is well ordered and follows clear rules. Most of these rules can be explained by the theory of evolution through heredity, mutation and selection. The present study demonstrates how progress in modern evolutionary algorithms has revolutionized the design optimization of composite structures. The performance of such algorithms is shown by the example of the fibre–reinforced composite laminated pressure vessel. With proper tuning such algorithms like particle swarm optimization and the Big Bang – Big Crunch optimization can reach the optimum solution within a few seconds even in a highly complex twenty-dimensional and higher search space. It is obvious that similar results can be achieved for various other types of problems. Obviously, the use of the evolutionary algorithms is not always resulting in an efficient optimization. For instance, for some problems, the use of the genetic algorithms might require millions of possible designs to be analysed. Besides, the heterogeneous material and geometrical complexities can stand in the way of an efficient search in a large design space. An accurate representation of the design model would lead to a much longer chromosome string and, as a result, a poor exchange of the genetic material and the stagnation of the algorithm. At the same time, such methods like the Particle Swarm Optimization and the Big Bang – Big Crunch algorithm seem to be faster and much easier to use then the GA if the design parameters can be given in the form of the coordinate numbers. This requirement, however, prevents their use for topological and similar design problems. Using the design optimization problem for the search of an optimum fibre orientation in complex laminated structures as an example, the performance of the optimizing methods is demonstrated and subsequently discussed.

Selected /recent 2 or 3 Journal publications.

1. Ebhota, W.S., Tabakov, P.Y. Development of domestic technology for sustainable renewable energy in a zero-carbon emission-driven economy// International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 2020 (Article in press)

2. Poletaev, G.M., Zorya, I.V., Starostenkov, M.D., Rakitin, R.Y., Tabakov, P.Y. Molecular Dynamics Simulation of the Migration of Tilt Grain Boundaries in Ni and Ni₃Al// Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, 2019, 128(1), pp. 88–93

3. Tabakov, P.Y., Moyo, S. A comparative analysis of evolutionary algorithms in the design of laminated composite structures// Science and Engineering of Composite Materials, 2017, 24(1), pp. 13–21