REMARKS ON SUFFICIENCY OF CONSTRAINT-BOUND SOLUTIONS IN OPTIMAL-DESIGN

Early preliminary models for optimal design problems in nonlinear prog ramming formulations often have solutions that are constraint-bound po ints, i.e., the number of active constraints equals the number of desi gn variables. Models leading to such solutions will typically offer li ttle insight to design trade-offs, and it is desirable to identify the m early in order to revise the model or to exclude the points from an active set strategy. Application of monotonicity analysis can quickly identify constraint-bound candidate solutions but not always prove the ir optimality. This article discusses some conditions under which thes e points are in fact global or local optima.