UNIVERSITY OF KERALA - College of Engineering, Trivandrum

08.806.13. Elective V. SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS
L T P/D Cr
3 0 0 3
Module I
Systems engineering- System-definition and examples of civil engineering systems, system analysis, system
design and system synthesis. Steps in analysis of systems- Mathematical modeling of systems- Optimization
problems-Objective function and constraints.
Formulation of the following optimization problems for civil engineers-minimum weight design of trusses and
frames, minimum cost design of beams, Column design based on Euler’s theory of buckling load, Optimal
design of water distribution systems, single reservoir operation, Minimum cost design of lined irrigation canals.
Traffic signal time optimization, Effluent disposal to rivers.
Concavity and convexity of optimization problems- Solution of single variable optimization problems-Calculus
based methods, Newton, bisection and secant method
Module- II
Solution of multi variable optimization problems- Lagrange multiplier method-KKT conditions. Unconstrained
optimization techniques for multi variable problems-direct search methods, Random search, uni-variate and
pattern search-Hook and Jeeve’s method, Descent methods-Fletcher and reeves method, Quasi-Newton methods
(conceptual idea only),
Constrained optimization and constraint handling - penalty function approach (conceptual idea only).
Module- III
Dynamic programming (DP) - Bellman’s principle of optimality, Application of DP to a pipe network problem.
Basic ideas of integer programming and multi-objective optimization (Descriptions only).
Evolutionary algorithms for optimization- Basic principles of Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing and
Swarm Intelligence Techniques (Ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization) (conceptual ideas
only).
Simulation-Concept of Monte Carlo Simulation (No numerical problem).
References/ Text Books
1. Fox R L -Optimization methods for engineering design – Weily
2. Rao S S -Engineering Optimization-theory and practice-, New Age International
3. Belegundu and Chandrapatla-Optimization concepts and applications in engineering-, Prentice Hall
India Ltd
4. Deb K -Optimization for engineering design- Algorithms and Examples–, Prentice Hall India Ltd
5. Haftka R T and Gurdal Z -Elements of structural optimization-Springer
6. Goldberg DE-Genetic Algorithms in search, optimization and machine learning.
7. Engelbrecht A P -Fundamentals of computational swarm Intelligence- Weily
8. Kennedy J and Eberhart R C-Swarm Intelligence- Morgan Kaufaman
9. Arora J S-Introduction to optimum design- Elsevier
10. Vedula P and Mujumdar P P-Water resources systems- TMH
Question paper: Duration: 3 Hrs
The question paper consists of part A and part B.
Part A consist of 8 questions of 5 marks each. Candidate has to answer all questions.
Part B is for 60 marks. Part B is divided into three modules. Candidate has to answer one full question out
of two, from each module.
Note: At least one assignment should be computer oriented. The candidate should practice to solve simple
optimization problems from civil engineering field using any commercial software.
119