Genetic Algorithms for Solving the Global Geometry Optimization Problem

Evaluating Initialization and Crossover Strategies for Lennard-Jones Cluster Optimization

Bachelor Thesis (2025)
Author(s)

E. Dzintars (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

Contributor(s)

Peter A.N. Bosman – Mentor (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI))

Anton Bouter – Mentor (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI))

Vanessa Volz – Mentor (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI))

T.E.P.M.F. Abeel – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatics)

Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
More Info
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Publication Year
2025
Language
English
Graduation Date
22-06-2025
Awarding Institution
Delft University of Technology
Project
['CSE3000 Research Project']
Programme
['Computer Science and Engineering']
Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
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Abstract

Discovery of new materials is essential in a lot if different fields, such as, space exploration, maritime industry and others. To stop new materials undergoing spontaneous reactions or reacting with the environment, they have to stable or at least metastable. That is where Global Geometry Optimization comes in, which tries to find global minimum on its Potential Energy Surface.
But modeling atoms is difficult as there is complex interplay of forces between each atom. A common simplification is to use the Lennard-Jones potential, which treats atoms as 3D points and models their interactions based on distance.
To find global minimum, Genetic Algorithm will be used and this research plans to study multiple different crossover strategies(sphere cut splice, uniform, two point, one point, arithmetical, plane cut splice crossover) and initialization strategies(box, sphere, octahedron initialization) to determine, which is the best for finding minimum for Lennard-Jones clusters. After analyzing results, it is inconclusive, which crossover produces best results, but it is clear that arithmetical produces worst results and octahedron initialization produces best results for clusters with size 10 to 15.

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