A Comparative Analysis of Constraint-Handling Mechanisms for Solving Engineering Design Problems

Optimization problems have numerous real-life applications in science and engineering. The engineering design problems are usually subject to various constraints. Although many state-of-the-art metaheuristic optimization algorithms have been developed during the last decades, these algorithms require additional constraint-handling mechanisms to cope with constrained optimization problems. Therefore, selecting a suitable constraint-handling mechanism requires extensive trial-and-error experiments, which is time-consuming and demanding. In this study, a comparative analysis of the eight constraint handling mechanisms is carried out, guiding decision-makers in their optimization practices. The constraint-handling techniques are used along with the whale optimization algorithm, and 19 real-life mechanical design problems, which are also part of the CEC2020 benchmark suite, are tested in the experimental analysis. The nonparametric statistical analysis incorporating Nemenyi and Holm post-hoc procedures shows that the inverse tangent constraint-handling and eclectic penalty methods exhibit high performance in real-life mechanical design problems.