Optimum Design Of Structures

The use of novel materials and new structural concepts nowadays is not restricted to highly technical areas like aerospace, aeronautical applications or the automotive industry, but affects all engineering fields including those such as civil engineering and architecture. Addressing issues involving advanced types of structures, particularly those based on new concepts or new materials and their system design, contributions highlight the latest developments in design, optimisation, manufacturing and experimentation. Also included are contributions on new software, numerical methods and different optimisation techniques. Optimisation problems of interest involve those related to size, shape and topology of structures and materials. Most high performance structures require the development of a generation of new materials, which can more easily resist a range of external stimuli or react in a non-conventional manner. Particular emphasis is placed on intelligent structures and materials as well as the application of computational methods for their modelling, control and management. Optimisation techniques have much to offer to those involved in the design of new industrial products. The formulation of optimum design has evolved from the time it was purely an academic topic, able now to satisfy the requirements of real life prototypes. The development of new algorithms and the appearance of powerful commercial computer codes, with easy to use graphical interfaces, have created a fertile field for the incorporation of optimisation in the design process in all engineering disciplines. This proceedings volume is the first from a new edition of the High Performance Design of Structures and Materials and the Optimum Design of Structures conferences, which follows the success of a number of meetings that originated in 1989. Topics covered include: Composite materials & structures; Material characterisation; Experiments and numerical analysis; Steel structures; High performance concretes; Natural fibre composites; Transformable structures; Lightweight structures; Timber structures; Environmentally friendly and sustainable structures; Emerging structural applications; Optimisation in civil engineering; Evolutionary methods in optimisation; Shape and topology optimisation; Aerospace structures; Structural optimisation; Biomechanics application; Material optimisation; Life cost optimisation; Intelligence structures and smart materials.

This book helps designers and manufacturers to select and develop the most suitable and competitive steel structures, which are safe, fit for production and economic. An optimum design system is used to find the best characteristics of structural models, which guarantee the fulfilment of design and fabrication requirements and minimize the cost function. Realistic numerical models are used as main components of industrial steel structures. Chapter 1 containts some experiences with the optimum design of steel structures Chapter 2 treats some newer mathematical optimization methods. Chapter 3 gives formulae for fabrication times and costs. Chapters 4 deals with beams and columns. Summarizes the Eurocode rules for design. Chapter 5 deals with the design of tubular trusses. Chapter 6 gives the design of frame structures and fire-resistant design rules for a frame. In Chapters 7 some minimum cost design problems of stiffened and cellular plates and shells are worked out for cases of different stiffenings and loads. Chapter 8 gives a cost comparison of cylindrical and conical shells. The book contains a large collection of literatures and a subject list and a name index.

In this text researchers from research centres and industry present current advances in structural optimization. The 35 papers include the following topics: shape and topology; optimization; optimal control; advances in numerical optimization; and emergent applications of design optimization.

Detailing a number of structural analysis problems such as residual welding stresses and distortions and behaviour of thin-walled rods loaded in bending, this text also explores mathematical function minimization methods, expert systems and optimum design of welded box beams.

This book contains the papers presented at the International Symposium, "The Optimum Shape: Automated Structural Design," held at the General Motors Research Laboratories on September 3D-October 1, 1985. This was the 30th symposium in a series which the Research Laboratories began sponsoring in 1957. Each symposium has focused on a topic that is both under active study at the Research Laboratories and is also of interest to the larger technical community. While attempts to produce a structure which performs a certain task with the minimum amount of resources probably predates recorded civilization, the idea of coupling formal optimization techniques with computer-based structural analysis techniques was first proposed in the early 1960s. Although it was recognized at this time that the most fundamental description of the problem would be in terms of the shape or contours of the structure, much of the early work described the problem in terms of structural sizing parameters instead of geometrical descriptions. Within the past few years, several research groups have started to explore this more fundamental area of shape design. Initial research has raised many new questions about appropriate selection of design variables, methods of calculating derivatives, and generation of the underlying analysis problem.

Reinforced concrete structures are one of the major structural types and must adhere to design regulation codes. It is ideal to find the best design (section dimension, material type, and amount of reinforcement) with the minimum cost providing the design constraints (design formulation considering loading of structure). Metaheuristic methods inspired by natural phenomena can consider design constraints by combining the analyses of formulation of reinforced concrete structures with an iterative numerical algorithm using several convergence options of random generation of candidate design solutions. Metaheuristic Approaches for Optimum Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a pivotal reference source that focuses on several metaheuristic algorithms and the design of several types of structural members. Additionally, retrofit applications and seismic design issues are considered for readers in earthquake zones. Highlighting a wide range of topics including algorithms, design variables, and retrofit design, this book is ideally designed for architects, engineers, urban designers, government officials, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students.

Containing papers from the 2nd High Performance Design of Structures and Materials and the Optimum Design of Structures conference, following the success of a number of meetings since 1989, this book will be of interest to those in any engineering field. The use of novel materials and new structural concepts nowadays is not restricted to highly technical areas like aerospace, aeronautical applications or the automotive industry, but affects all engineering fields including those such as civil engineering and architecture. Most high performance structures require the development of a generation of new higher performance sustainable materials, which can more easily resist a range of external stimuli or react in a non-conventional manner. Emphasis is placed on intelligent structures and materials as well as the application of computational methods for their modelling, control and management. Optimisation problems of interest involve those related to size, shape and topology of structures and materials. Optimisation techniques have much to offer to those involved in the design of new industrial products. The development of new algorithms and the appearance of powerful commercial computer codes with easy to use graphical interfaces have created a fertile field for the incorporation of optimisation into the design process in all engineering disciplines. The book addresses the topic of design optimisation with welcomed contributions on numerical methods, different optimisation techniques and new software. Several of the topics covered are: Composite materials and structures; Material characterisation; Experiments and numerical analysis; Transformable structures; Environmentally friendly and sustainable structures; Evolutionary methods in optimisation; Aerospace structures; Biomechanics application and Pneumatic structures.