Heuristics and metaheuristics in the design of sound-absorbing porous materials

Inexact optimisation techniques such as heuristics and metaheuristics that quickly find near-optimal solutions are widely used to solve hard problems. While metaheuristics are well studied on specific problem domains such as travelling salesman, timetabling, vehicle routing etc., their extension to engineering domains is largely unexplored due to the requirement of domain expertise. In this thesis, we address a specific engineering domain: the design of sound-absorbing porous materials. Porous materials are foams, fibrous materials, woven and non-woven textiles, etc., that are widely used in automotive, aerospace and household applications to isolate and absorb noise to prevent equipment damage, protect hearing or ensure comfort. These materials constitute a significant amount of dead weight in aircraft and space applications, and choosing sub-optimal designs would lead to inefficiency and increased costs. By carefully choosing the material properties and shapes of these materials, favourable resonances can be created making it possible to improve absorption while also reducing weight. The optimisation problem structure is yet to be well-explored and not many comparison studies are available in this domain. This thesis aims to address the knowledge gap by analysing the performance of existing and novel heuristic and metaheuristic methods. Initially, the problem structure is explored by considering a one-dimensional layered sound package problem. Then, the challenging two-dimensional foam shape and topology optimisation is addressed. Topology optimisation involves optimally distributing a given volume of material in a design region such that a performance measure is maximised. Although extensive studies exist for the compliance minimisation problem domain, studies and comparisons on porous material problems are relatively rare. Firstly, a single objective absorption maximisation problem with a constraint on the weight is considered. Then a multi-objective problem of simultaneously maximising absorption and minimising weight is considered. The unique nature of the topology optimisation problem allows it to be solved using combinatorial or continuous, gradient or non-gradient methods. In this work, several optimisation methods are studied, including solid isotropic material with penalisation (SIMP), hill climbing, constructive heuristics, genetic algorithms, tabu search, co-variance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES), differential evolution, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) and hybrid strategies. These approaches are tested on a benchmark of seven acoustics problem instances. The results are used to extract domain-specific insights. The findings highlight that the problem domain is rich with unique varieties of solutions, and by using domain-specific insights, one can design hybrid gradient and non-gradient methods that consistently outperform state-of-the-art ones

Heuristics and metaheuristics in the design of sound-absorbing porous materials

Inexact optimisation techniques such as heuristics and metaheuristics that quickly find near-optimal solutions are widely used to solve hard problems. While metaheuristics are well studied on specific problem domains such as travelling salesman, timetabling, vehicle routing etc., their extension to engineering domains is largely unexplored due to the requirement of domain expertise. In this thesis, we address a specific engineering domain: the design of sound-absorbing porous materials. Porous materials are foams, fibrous materials, woven and non-woven textiles, etc., that are widely used in automotive, aerospace and household applications to isolate and absorb noise to prevent equipment damage, protect hearing or ensure comfort. These materials constitute a significant amount of dead weight in aircraft and space applications, and choosing sub-optimal designs would lead to inefficiency and increased costs. By carefully choosing the material properties and shapes of these materials, favourable resonances can be created making it possible to improve absorption while also reducing weight. The optimisation problem structure is yet to be well-explored and not many comparison studies are available in this domain. This thesis aims to address the knowledge gap by analysing the performance of existing and novel heuristic and metaheuristic methods. Initially, the problem structure is explored by considering a one-dimensional layered sound package problem. Then, the challenging two-dimensional foam shape and topology optimisation is addressed. Topology optimisation involves optimally distributing a given volume of material in a design region such that a performance measure is maximised. Although extensive studies exist for the compliance minimisation problem domain, studies and comparisons on porous material problems are relatively rare. Firstly, a single objective absorption maximisation problem with a constraint on the weight is considered. Then a multi-objective problem of simultaneously maximising absorption and minimising weight is considered. The unique nature of the topology optimisation problem allows it to be solved using combinatorial or continuous, gradient or non-gradient methods. In this work, several optimisation methods are studied, including solid isotropic material with penalisation (SIMP), hill climbing, constructive heuristics, genetic algorithms, tabu search, co-variance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES), differential evolution, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) and hybrid strategies. These approaches are tested on a benchmark of seven acoustics problem instances. The results are used to extract domain-specific insights. The findings highlight that the problem domain is rich with unique varieties of solutions, and by using domain-specific insights, one can design hybrid gradient and non-gradient methods that consistently outperform state-of-the-art ones

Multi-objective topology optimisation for acoustic porous materials using gradient-based, gradient-free, and hybrid strategies

When designing passive sound-attenuation structures, one of the challenging problems that arise is optimally distributing acoustic porous materials within a design region so as to maximise sound absorption while minimising material usage. To identify efficient optimisation strategies for this multi-objective problem, several gradient, non-gradient, and hybrid topology optimisation strategies are compared. For gradient approaches, the solid-isotropic-material-with-penalisation method and a gradient-based constructive heuristic are considered. For gradient-free approaches, hill climbing with a weighted-sum scalarisation and a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II are considered. Optimisation trials are conducted on seven benchmark problems involving rectangular design domains in impedance tubes subject to normal-incidence sound loads. The results indicate that while gradient methods can provide quick convergence with high-quality solutions, often gradient-free strategies are able to find improvements in specific regions of the Pareto front. Two hybrid approaches are proposed, combining a gradient method for initiation and a non-gradient method for local improvements. An effective Pareto-slope-based weighted-sum hill climbing is introduced for local improvement. Results reveal that for a given computational budget, the hybrid methods can consistently outperform the parent gradient or non-gradient method

Comparison of heuristics and metaheuristics for topology optimisation in acoustic porous materials

When designing sound packages, often fully filling the available space with acoustic materials is not the most absorbing solution. Better solutions can be obtained by creating cavities of air pockets, but determining the most optimal shape and topology that maximises sound absorption is a computationally challenging task. Many recent topology optimisation applications in acoustics use heuristic methods such as solid-isotropic-material-with-penalisation (SIMP) to quickly find near-optimal solutions. This study investigates seven heuristic and metaheuristic optimisation approaches including SIMP applied to topology optimisation of acoustic porous materials for absorption maximisation. The approaches tested are hill climbing, constructive heuristics, SIMP, genetic algorithm, tabu search, covariance-matrix-adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES), and differential evolution. All the algorithms are tested on seven benchmark problems varying in material properties, target frequencies, and dimensions. The empirical results show that hill climbing, constructive heuristics, and a discrete variant of CMA-ES outperform the other algorithms in terms of the average quality of solutions over the different problem instances. Though gradient-based SIMP algorithms converge to local optima in some problem instances, they are computationally more efficient. One of the general lessons is that different strategies explore different regions of the search space producing unique sets of solutions

Abstracts of National Conference on Research and Developments in Material Processing, Modelling and Characterization 2020

This book presents the abstracts of the papers presented to the Online National Conference on Research and Developments in Material Processing, Modelling and Characterization 2020 (RDMPMC-2020) held on 26th and 27th August 2020 organized by the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Science in Association with the Department of Production and Industrial Engineering, National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India. Conference Title: National Conference on Research and Developments in Material Processing, Modelling and Characterization 2020Conference Acronym: RDMPMC-2020Conference Date: 26–27 August 2020Conference Location: Online (Virtual Mode)Conference Organizer: Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, National Institute of Technology JamshedpurCo-organizer: Department of Production and Industrial Engineering, National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, IndiaConference Sponsor: TEQIP-

The surgical safety checklist and patient outcomes after surgery: a prospective observational cohort study, systematic review and meta-analysis

© 2017 British Journal of Anaesthesia Background: The surgical safety checklist is widely used to improve the quality of perioperative care. However, clinicians continue to debate the clinical effectiveness of this tool. Methods: Prospective analysis of data from the International Surgical Outcomes Study (ISOS), an international observational study of elective in-patient surgery, accompanied by a systematic review and meta-analysis of published literature. The exposure was surgical safety checklist use. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality and the secondary outcome was postoperative complications. In the ISOS cohort, a multivariable multi-level generalized linear model was used to test associations. To further contextualise these findings, we included the results from the ISOS cohort in a meta-analysis. Results are reported as odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals. Results: We included 44 814 patients from 497 hospitals in 27 countries in the ISOS analysis. There were 40 245 (89.8%) patients exposed to the checklist, whilst 7508 (16.8%) sustained ≥1 postoperative complications and 207 (0.5%) died before hospital discharge. Checklist exposure was associated with reduced mortality [odds ratio (OR) 0.49 (0.32–0.77); P\u3c0.01], but no difference in complication rates [OR 1.02 (0.88–1.19); P=0.75]. In a systematic review, we screened 3732 records and identified 11 eligible studies of 453 292 patients including the ISOS cohort. Checklist exposure was associated with both reduced postoperative mortality [OR 0.75 (0.62–0.92); P\u3c0.01; I2=87%] and reduced complication rates [OR 0.73 (0.61–0.88); P\u3c0.01; I2=89%). Conclusions: Patients exposed to a surgical safety checklist experience better postoperative outcomes, but this could simply reflect wider quality of care in hospitals where checklist use is routine

Prospective observational cohort study on grading the severity of postoperative complications in global surgery research

Background The Clavien–Dindo classification is perhaps the most widely used approach for reporting postoperative complications in clinical trials. This system classifies complication severity by the treatment provided. However, it is unclear whether the Clavien–Dindo system can be used internationally in studies across differing healthcare systems in high- (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Methods This was a secondary analysis of the International Surgical Outcomes Study (ISOS), a prospective observational cohort study of elective surgery in adults. Data collection occurred over a 7-day period. Severity of complications was graded using Clavien–Dindo and the simpler ISOS grading (mild, moderate or severe, based on guided investigator judgement). Severity grading was compared using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Data are presented as frequencies and ICC values (with 95 per cent c.i.). The analysis was stratified by income status of the country, comparing HICs with LMICs. Results A total of 44 814 patients were recruited from 474 hospitals in 27 countries (19 HICs and 8 LMICs). Some 7508 patients (16·8 per cent) experienced at least one postoperative complication, equivalent to 11 664 complications in total. Using the ISOS classification, 5504 of 11 664 complications (47·2 per cent) were graded as mild, 4244 (36·4 per cent) as moderate and 1916 (16·4 per cent) as severe. Using Clavien–Dindo, 6781 of 11 664 complications (58·1 per cent) were graded as I or II, 1740 (14·9 per cent) as III, 2408 (20·6 per cent) as IV and 735 (6·3 per cent) as V. Agreement between classification systems was poor overall (ICC 0·41, 95 per cent c.i. 0·20 to 0·55), and in LMICs (ICC 0·23, 0·05 to 0·38) and HICs (ICC 0·46, 0·25 to 0·59). Conclusion Caution is recommended when using a treatment approach to grade complications in global surgery studies, as this may introduce bias unintentionally

Critical care admission following elective surgery was not associated with survival benefit: prospective analysis of data from 27 countries

This was an investigator initiated study funded by Nestle Health Sciences through an unrestricted research grant, and by a National Institute for Health Research (UK) Professorship held by RP. The study was sponsored by Queen Mary University of London