Optimization-Based Design of 3D Reinforced Concrete Structures

Abstract

In the design of reinforced concrete (RC) structures, finding the optimal section of members and the optimal rebar, which is capable of observing building code’s requirements, is always the primary concern to engineers. Since an optimal design needs a trial-and-error approach, which designs are almost assumed without this approach, that is unlikely to lead to the best solution. Therefore, in this article, the aim is achieving an optimal structural design that can satisfy the building code’s requirements, such as constraints on flexural strength, shear strength, drift, and constraint of construction at the same time. The work is presented in this paper intends to accelerate the process with an optimization system. To do so, a six-story RC structure analyzed by the linear static method and results of the optimization process, done by the Particle Swarm optimization algorithm (PSO), has shown that the weight of the structure optimized and observed limitations.

Keywords

• optimization
• concrete structure
• seismic design
• particle swarm algorithm