A RELATIVE DIFFERENCE QUOTIENT ALGORITHM FOR DISCRETE OPTIMIZATION

According to the characteristics of discrete optimization, the concept of a relative difference quotient is proposed, and a highly accurate heuristic algorithm, a relative difference quotient algorithm, is deve loped for a class of discrete optimization problems with monotonic obj ective functions and constraint functions. The algorithm starts from t he minimum point of the objective function outside the feasible region and advances along the direction of minimum increment of the objectiv e function and maximum decrement of constraint functions to find a bet ter approximate optimum solution. In order to evaluate the performance of the algorithm, a stochastic numerical test and a statistical analy sis for the test results are also completed, The algorithm has been su ccessfully applied to the discrete optimization of structures.