Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
In this paper we propose an easy-to-implement algorithm for solving general nonlinear optimization problems with nonlinear equality constraints. A nonmonotonic trust region strategy is suggested which does not require the merit function to reduce its value in every iteration. In order to deal with large problems, a reduced Hessian is used to replace a full Hessian matrix. To avoid solving quadratic trust region subproblems exactly which usually takes substantial computation, we only require an approximate solution which requires less computation. The calculation of correction steps, necessary from a theoretical view point to overcome the Maratos effect but which often brings in negative results in practice, is avoided in most cases by setting a criterion to judge its necessity. Global convergence and a local superlinear rate are then proved. This algorithm has a good performance.