Optimal Design of Sewer Network Size using Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm: Comparing Performance of Four Different Algorithms

In this paper, the features of Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm (ACOA) are used to find optimal size for sewer network. Two different formulations are proposed. In the first formulation, pipes diameters and in the second formulation, nodal elevations of sewer network are taken as decision variables of the problem. In order to evaluate the performance of different ACOAs, four algorithms of Ant System, Elitist Ant System, Ranked Ant System and Max-Min Ant System are used to solve this optimization problem. Different test examples are solved using two proposed formulations for each ACOAs and the results are presented and compared with other available results. The results indicate the efficiency of the proposed methods in the solation of sewer network design optimization problem and the results of Max-Min Ant System are better in comparison with other ACOAs.