Comparative investigation of the moth-flame algorithm and whale optimization algorithm for optimal spur gear design

In this study, two recent algorithms, the whale optimization algorithm and moth-flame optimization, are used to optimize spur gear design. The objective function is the minimization of the total weight of the spur gear pair. Moreover, the optimization problem is subjected to constraints on the main kinematic and geometric conditions as well as to the resistance of the material of the gear system. The comparison between mothflame optimization (MFO), the whale optimization algorithm (WOA), and previous studies indicate that the final results obtained from both algorithms lead to a reduction in gear weight by 1.05 %. MFO and the WOA are compared with four additional swarm algorithms. The experimental results indicate that the algorithms introduced here, in particular MFO, outperform the four other methods when compared in terms of solution quality, robustness, and high success rate. © 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, Germany.