Global convergence of a nonlinear programming method using convex approximations

The method of moving asymptotes (MMA) and its globally convergent extension SCP (sequential convex programming) are known to work well for certain problems arising in structural optimization. In this paper, the methods are extended for a general mathematical programming framework and a new scheme to update certain penalty parameters is defined, which leads to a considerable improvement in the performance. Properties of the approximation functions are outlined in detail. All convergence results of the traditional methods are preserved.