en Optimal design Optimal design پژوهشي Research <span style="font-size:8pt"><span style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="color:black"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="line-height:150%"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">This paper presents an Enhanced Prairie Dog Optimization (IPDO) algorithm for solving complex engineering optimization problems. The proposed improvement integrates L&eacute;vy flight dynamics into the original PDO framework to enhance exploration-exploitation balance and accelerate convergence. The performance of IPDO is evaluated against seven established metaheuristics across four challenging civil engineering applications: (1) discrete sizing optimization of a 120-bar truss, (2) structural reliability analysis of a cantilever tube, (3) cost optimization of reinforced concrete beams, and (4) hyperparameter tuning of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) for shear strength prediction of steel fiber-reinforced concrete. Experimental results demonstrate that IPDO consistently achieves superior solution quality, robustness, and convergence speed. Notably, in SVM hyperparameter optimization, IPDO attained the lowest mean squared error (1.4881) with zero variance across runs, outperforming all competitors. The algorithm also proved highly effective in structural design and reliability problems, offering a reliable and efficient tool for real-world engineering optimization.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span> Engineering optimization, Improved Prairie Dog Optimization, Metaheuristic algorithm, Truss structures 595 620 http://ijoce.iust.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-6501-2&slc_lang=en&sid=1 T. PayamiFar Tohidpayamifar@yahoo.com 180031947532846002876 180031947532846002876 No Department of Civil Engineering, Mah.C., Islamic Azad University, Mahabad, Iran R. Sojoudizadeh Reza.Sojoudizadeh@iau.ac.ir 180031947532846002877 180031947532846002877 Yes Department of Civil Engineering, Mah.C., Islamic Azad University, Mahabad, Iran H. Azizian Hadi.Azizian@iau.ac.ir 180031947532846002878 180031947532846002878 No Department of Civil Engineering, Mah.C., Islamic Azad University, Mahabad, Iran L. Rahimi loghman.rahimi@iau.ac.ir 180031947532846002879 180031947532846002879 No Department of Civil Engineering, Mah.C., Islamic Azad University, Mahabad, Iran