A Boundary Identification Approach for the Feasible Space of Structural Optimization Using a Virtual Sampling Technique-Based Support Vector Machine

•A boundary identify approach is proposed for structural optimization.•A virtual sampling technique is developed for the support vector machine.•An improved LHS is utilized to improve quality of the training set. To improve the computational efficiency of structural optimization, this study treats the feasibility evaluation of the solutions as a two-class classification problem and proposes a boundary identification approach (BIA) to identify the feasible region boundary of search space. The BIA includes a virtual sampling technique (VST), an improved Latin hypercube sampling (ILHS) method, and a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. The VST can generate cheap samples based on a mapping strategy from actual samples without time-consuming structural analysis. To enhance the global performance of the SVM, the ILHS yields the sample set on the normalized hypersphere of the original design space. An optimization framework based on the BIA hybridized with the harmony search algorithm is presented, and two numerical and three truss examples are utilized to examine the performances of the proposed optimization framework. The prediction accuracy of the BIA reaches about 99% in two numerical examples, and 97%, 90%, and 80% in the 10-bar, 72-bar, and 600-bar truss optimization examples, respectively. The results also show that the number of structural analyses required by the proposed optimization approach is reduced by more than 80% compared to the conventional metaheuristics optimization algorithms while obtaining a similar quality of optimal designs.