Structural Design Essay

764 Words2 Pages

The best practices in structural engineering always demand design solutions with maximum efficiency. It can be achieved by finding the best possible design of the structure with minimum cost or minimum material consumption while satisfying the safety and performance requirements. For instance, the basic framing of building structures consists of beams and columns. Mostly rectangular beams are used. The fundamental concept of stress distribution in rectangular beams suggests that extreme vertical ends of the beam need more material than the part in between those two extreme ends. Hence, I-shaped beams are better alternative for rectangular ones as they have lesser material between the extreme ends. Thus, modifying areas with low stresses in …show more content…

In the field of civil/structural engineering, many design industries use the optimisation technique to demonstrate the conceptual design; mostly applying to the entire structure that provides novel layout of the framing system. However, not much has been accomplished on the component level. Even though application of topology optimisation concepts on structural components are presented as illustrative examples in research papers, they are mainly restricted to show various methods of optimisation. Hence, practicality of the result is not …show more content…

The objectives are: • To formulate optimisation problems for each structural components of large span steel structures. • To simulate various optimised sections based on the defined optimisation problem formulation. • To investigate the optimised design by performing finite element analyses. • To develop novel design that can be easily manufactured and form a robust framing system. METHODOLOGY: The methodology of the project will be divided into three components, one for each year of my doctorate. The following is a brief overview: Components Activities Structural elements determination • Review of various large span single storey steel buildings to determine the type of framing systems and sections used. • Determination of serviceability and limit state criteria for the design of these structures in accordance with the design codes. • Based on it, optimisation problems are established. Structural optimisation • Literature review of the existing optimisation technique and various optimisation algorithms. • Mathematical formulation of the optimisation

More about Structural Design Essay

Open Document