A novel approach for optimum designing of cold-formed steel channel beams

The great flexibility of cross-sectional profiles of cold-formed steel makes the selection of the most economical section difficult for a particular situation. In this paper, the Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) is used to find optimum cross-sectional profiles of cold-formed steel beams for various load level. The Imperialist Competitive Algorithm as a socio-politically inspired optimization strategy is inspired by competition mechanism among Imperialists and colonies, in contrast to evolutionary algorithms. To validate the proposed approach, the results of ICA were finally compared with the Genetic Algorithm (GA). Based on the results, ICA has demonstrated excellent capabilities such as accuracy, faster convergence and better global optimum achievement