<p>Submarine pressure hulls are designed in such a way that the total buoyancy is balanced by the total weight to maintain a specific desired water depth. Structural efficiency is, therefore, translated directly into a better payload and deeper operational range. This paper presents a study of the effectiveness of three optimization tools for the problem of minimizing the weight of pressure hulls: differential evolution (DE), particle swarm (PS) and simulated annealing (SA). Their convergence rate and final resulting structure were compared using an analytical model. The influence of the primary dimensions, design pressure and variations in the partial safety factors is also factored into the evaluation of the optimization tools. Once optimal structures according to different partial safety factors are attained, these are verified with finite elements analysis (FEA) models considering an initial imperfection and with hydrostatic external pressure applied using the path-following Riks method. The results of this study indicate that the DE is the most effective method for the proposed problem among the tools evaluated and that the implementation of optimization tools in early design stages could potentially reduce the weight and improve the payload of submarines.</p>