Simulated Annealing is one of the most important meta-heuristics or generalpurpose
algorithms of combinatorial optimization, due to its convergence towards
high quality solutions. However, it is associated with a high computational cost
and difficulties related to the parameters settings. Therefore the algorithm's
convergence speed has been the subject of a largenumber of research works.
Settings the parametersof the algorithm determines the generation of the new
solution. One of the most important features in simulated annealing is the choice of
the annealing schedule, and many attempts have been made to derive or suggest
good schedulesas an optimization technique. The precise rate of cooling is an
essential part of Simulated Annealing as it determines its performance. In this
paper, we make a comparative study of the performance of simulated annealing
using the most important annealing strategies for selecting the initial value of
temperature, the cooling schedule, the number of iterations to be performed, and
the stopping criterion. The analytical results among different annealing schedules
are studied, analyzed and compared. The results are encouraging for application
purposes.