Optimization of Tower Crane Location and Material Quantity Between Supply and Demand Points: A Comparative Study

Location optimization of tower crane as an expensive equipment in the construction projects has an important effect on material transportation costs. Due to the construction site conditions, there are several tower crane location optimization models. Appropriate location of tower cranes for material supply and engineering demands is a combinatorial optimization problem within the tower crane layout problem that is difficult to resolve.  Meta-heuristics are popular and useful techniques to resolve complex optimization problems. In this paper, the performance of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and four newly developed meta-heuristic algorithms Colliding Bodies Optimization (CBO), Enhanced Colliding Bodies Optimization (ECBO), Vibrating Particles System (VPS), and Enhanced Vibrating Particles System (EVPS) are compared in terms of their effectiveness in resolving a practical Tower Crane Layout (TCL) problem. Results show that ECBO performs better than other three methods in both cases.