Article ID: | iaor20125278 |
Volume: | 14 |
Issue: | 4 |
Start Page Number: | 417 |
End Page Number: | 432 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2012 |
Journal: | International Journal of Operational Research |
Authors: | Udhayakumar A, Charles Vincent |
Keywords: | combinatorial optimization, heuristics: genetic algorithms, simulation: applications |
This paper addresses the chance constrained reliability stochastic optimisation problem, in which the objective is to maximise system reliability for the given chance constraints. A problem specific stochastic simulation‐based genetic algorithm (GA) is developed for finding optimal redundancy to an n‐stage series system with m‐chance constraints of the redundancy allocation problem. As GA is a proven robust evolutionary optimisation search technique for solving various reliability optimisation problems and the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation, which is a flexible tool for checking feasibility of chance constraints, we have effectively combined GA and MC simulation in the proposed algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is illustrated for a four‐stage series system with two chance constraints.