Application of Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization for Quality Control of Mechanical Properties of High-Strength Steels

In many applications, it is common to have several objective functions have to be optimized simultaneously. Because of the multi-criteria nature of such optimization problems and sometimes competing objective functions, optimality of a solution has to be redefined relying on concept of Pareto optimality. A relatively recent heuristic technique called Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) has been found to perform very well in a wide range of multi-objective optimization problems. This paper explores the application of this technique for the optimization of mechanical properties of high-strength structural steels. MOPSO can be effectively applied for the solution of a bi-objective optimization problem to determine optimal chemical composition, achieving a trade-off between tensile strength and elongation-to-break for a big class of structural steels.