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Hydraulic structures such as barrages divert water from the river to main irrigation or power generation canals. The depth of sheet piles, the length and thickness of floor may be treated as basic parameters for design of hydraulic structures. However, there is no fixed procedure to design these basic parameters. Present work investigates the optimal design of barrages located on an alluvial permeable foundation. The optimum cost is nonlinear function of basic design parameters. A nonlinear optimization formulation (NLOF) is solved using hybrid differential evolution multiple particle swarm optimization (HDEMPSO). The mathematical model that represents the subsurface flow is embedded in the NLOF. The applicability of the approach has been illustrated with a typical example of barrage profile. The results obtained in this study show drastic cost savings when the proposed NLOF is solved using HDEMPSO. HDEMPSO results are better compared to those obtained by genetic algorithm and conventional techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]