Abstract: A fast and robust differential evolution based on Orthogonal Design（ODE） is proposed，and then it is used to solve engineering optimum design problems.The ODE combines the Conventional DE（CDE），which is simple and efficient，with the orthogonal design，which can exploit the optimum offspring.The ODE has some features.（1）It uses a robust crossover based on orthogonal design and an optimal offspring is generated with the constrained statistical optimal method.（2）It uses simple diversity rules to handle the constraints and maintain the diversity of the population.（3）The ODE simplifies the scaling factor F of the CDE，which can reduce the parameters of the algorithm and make it easy to use for engineers.The authors execute the proposed algorithm to solve 2 engineering optimum designs with linear or/and nonlinear constraints.Through comparison with some other algorithms，the experimental results demonstrate that the performance of the ODE outperforms other algorithms in terms of the quality of the final solution and the stability.Moreover，the new algorithm has no special requirements on the characteristics of optimal designing problems；it has a fairly good universal adaptability and a reliable operation of program with a strong ability of overall convergence.