Introduction to Optimum Design

**2025 Textbook and Academic Authors Association (TAA) McGuffey Longevity Award Winner**

Introduction to Optimum Design, Fifth Edition is the most widely used textbook in engineering optimization and optimum design courses. It is intended for use in a first course on engineering design and optimization at the undergraduate or graduate level within engineering departments of all disciplines, but primarily within mechanical, aerospace and civil engineering. The basic approach of the text presents an organized approach to engineering design optimization in a rigorous yet simplified manner, illustrating various concepts and procedures with simple examples and demonstrating their applicability to engineering design problems. Formulation of a design problem as an optimization problem is emphasized and illustrated throughout the text. Excel and MATLAB are featured as learning and teaching aids. This new edition has been enhanced with new or expanded content in such areas as reliability‐based optimization, metamodeling, design of experiments, robust design, nature-inspired metaheuristic search methods, and combinatorial optimizaton.

Dr. Arora is the F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Iowa. He was also Director of the Optimal Design Laboratory and Associate Director of the Center for Computer Aided Design. He is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of optimization, numerical analysis, and real-time implementation. His research interests include optimization-based digital human modeling, dynamic response optimization, optimal control of systems, design sensitivity analysis and optimization of nonlinear systems, and parallel optimization algorithms. Dr. Arora has authored two books, co-authored or edited five others, written 160 journal articles, 27 book chapters, 130 conference papers, and more than 300 technical reports.