A coupled particle swarm and harmony search optimization algorithm for difficult geotechnical problems

Many solutions in geotechnical problems are the result of optimization analysis. There are many practical engineering problems where the objective function is non‐convex, discontinuous with the presence of multiple strong local minima, and the classical optimization methods may sometime be trapped by the local minimum during the analysis. In this paper, a coupled optimization method is proposed for such difficult cases. The mixed optimization algorithm can takes the advantage of different algorithms, and the proposed algorithm is demonstrated to be effective and efficient in solving a very complicated hydropower problem with a high level of confidence. The proposed method can further be applied to different kinds of difficult engineering problems.