The Utility of Nonlinear Programming Algorithms: A Comparative Study—Part I

A comprehensive comparative study of nonlinear programming algorithms, as applied to problems in engineering design, is presented. Linear approximation methods, interior penalty and exterior penalty methods were tested on a set of thirty problems and are rated on their ability to solve problems within a reasonable amount of computational time. In this paper we discuss the organization and conduct of the study, and in a companion paper, we give numerical results and algorithm performance curves.