Modified SUMT for structural synthesis

The concepts of the singular perturbation theory are employed to modify the SUMT (Sequential Unconstrained Minimization Technique) algorithm of Fiacco-McCormick (1968) in order to make it more robust and reliable. The algorithm, which uses a sequence of penalty parameters to convert a constrained problem into a sequence of unconstrained problems, suffers from the need to minimize an ill-conditioned penalty function. By using the modified SUMT algorithm on two different structural optimization problems, it is shown that the singular perturbation SUMT easily converges to accurate solutions.