Improved Grey-Wolf Optimizer for Reliability Analysis

In this paper, we addressed the reliability analysis by combining the grey wolf optimizer (GWO) with the first-order reliability method (FORM). To improve the global search ability of GWO, a new position-updated equation is presented according to position update process of accelerated particle swarm (APSO) which can explore the search space quickly and locate the optimal solution efficiently. In the proposed method named IGWO, FORM is used to evaluate the fitness of each agent. In order to investigate the efficiencies of IGWO in reliability analysis, four classic examples, as well as roof truss model are employed. The results are compared to four well-known heuristic algorithms. The results show that reliability analysis by using IGWO is significantly better than the current heuristic algorithms.