Learning From Ant Society in Optimizing Concrete Retaining Walls

In the present paper, lessons are learnt from ant society so that humankind can optimize his engineeringissues. as an example of such issues, a reinforced concrete retaining wadfor which the application of optimization canreduce the costs involved is considered. traditional design procedure for reinforced concrete retaining wadsis una hieto design an optimized wall unless a large trial effort is undertaken. this paper introduces a learning procedure fromants, which is a general search technique for the solution of difficult combinatorial problems with its theoretical rootsbased on the foraging behavior of ants. this methodology arrives at an optimal design for concrete retaining wadsdueto its capability to explore and exploit the solution space effectively. the basis of analysis in this paper is to determinethe minimum weight and costs in the design of concrete retaining walls following a computation of lateral total thruston the wad due to backfill pressures, bearing capacity consideration, settlement analysis, stahility analysis, andapplication of design of reinforced concrete principles. the results clearly indicate that ant colony can educateengineers comprehensively to reach a minimum cost justified retaining wall through an optimization approach