Mechanical Identification of Materials and Structures with Optical Methods and Metaheuristic Optimization

This study presents a hybrid framework for mechanical identification of materials and structures. The inverse problem is solved by combining experimental measurements performed by optical methods and non-linear optimization using metaheuristic algorithms. In particular, we develop three advanced formulations of Simulated Annealing (SA), Harmony Search (HS) and Big Bang-Big Crunch (BBBC) including enhanced approximate line search and computationally cheap gradient evaluation strategies. The rationale behind the new algorithms-denoted as Hybrid Fast Simulated Annealing (HFSA), Hybrid Fast Harmony Search (HFHS) and Hybrid Fast Big Bang-Big Crunch (HFBBBC)-is to generate high quality trial designs lying on a properly selected set of descent directions. Besides hybridizing SA/HS/BBBC metaheuristic search engines with gradient information and approximate line search, HS and BBBC are also hybridized with an enhanced 1-D probabilistic search derived from SA. The results obtained in three inverse problems regarding composite and transversely isotropic hyperelastic materials/structures with up to 17 unknown properties clearly demonstrate the validity of the proposed approach, which allows to significantly reduce the number of structural analyses with respect to previous SA/HS/BBBC formulations and improves robustness of metaheuristic search engines.