• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.205-213
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• 1988

It is not a simple task to optimize a cable stayed bridge, because it involves, in addition to the section properties, number and arrangement of cables, initial tension forces of cables, and type and height of the tower as design variables. This study deals with an optimization problem of cable stayed bridges considering initial cable forces, section properties of the girder and the tower, and coordinates of the tower. In order to avoid difficulties in dealing with numerous variables which interact mutually, separate design spaces are adopted for initial cable forces, section properties, and coordinates, respectively. Strain energy stored in the structure is used as the object function in the design of the initial cable forces, while weight of the structure is used in the design of section and coordinates. Upper and lower limits of the initial forces, allowable stresses including the effect of buckling, and lower limit of the sectional area are considered as constraints. The proposed method is applied to a fan type bridge and a harp type bridge. It is believed through comparison of the results to the previous results in the literature that the proposed method renders rational design values. It is also shown that the coordinate optimization, which is usually deleted in the optimization process, results in additional saving of materials.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.55-68
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• 1991

In this study, Mixed coordination method was selected to optimize the shape of the truss structures which takes multi-loading condition, allowable stress, buckling stress, displacement constraints into consideration. The structure was devided into substructures by Goal coordination method and the substructures were optimized by model coordination method which used two-level technique. Therefore the number of design variables and constrints can be decreased considerable. Under the condition of the same disign, the weight of truss structures can be decreased more considerable by means of optimizing even the shape of truss than by means of optimizing the section of truss while fixing geometrical configuration of it, even though there might be a little difference according to the early geomatrical shape of the truss and the design condition. Thus, the shape optimization of truss structures which utilize the results of this study can be helpful to the economical design of truss structures.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.319-332
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• 2004

Due to their high strength to weight ratios and excellent durability, fiber reinforced polymer(FRP) is widely used in construction industries. In this paper, a shape optimum design of FRP bridge decks haying pultruded cellular cross-section is presented. In the problem formulation, an objective function is selected to minimize the volumes. The cross-sectional dimensions and material properties of the deck of FRP bridges are used as the design variables. On the other hand, deflection limits in the design code, material failure criteria, buckling load, minimum height, and stress are selected as the design constraints to enhance the structural performance of FRP decks. In order to efficiently treat the optimization process, the cross-sectional shape of bridge decks is assumed to be a tube shape. The optimization process utilizes an improved Genetic Algorithms incorporating indexing technique. For the structural analysis using a three-dimensional finite element, a commercial package(ABAQUS) is used. Using a computer program coded for this study, an example problem is solved and the results are presented with sensitivity analysis. The bridge consists of a deck width of 12.14m and is supported by five 40m long steel girders spaced at 2.5m. The bridge is designed to carry a standard DB-24 truck loading according to the Standard Specifications for Highway Bridges in Korea. Based on the optimum design, viable cross-sectional dimensions for FRP decks, suitable for pultrusion process are proposed.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.73-84
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• 1993

In this research, configuration design optimization of plane truss structure has been tested by using decomposition technique. In the first level, the problem of transferring the nonlinear programming problem to linear programming problem has been effectively solved and the number of the structural analysis necessary for doing the sensitivity analysis can be decreased by developing stress constraint into member stress approximation according to the design space approach which has been proved to be efficient to the sensitivity analysis. And the weight function has been adopted as cost function in order to minimize structures. For the design constraint, allowable stress, buckling stress, displacement constraint under multi-condition and upper and lower constraints of the design variable are considered. In the second level, the nodal point coordinates of the truss structure are used as coordinating variable and the objective function has been taken as the weight function. By treating the nodal point coordinates as design variable, unconstrained optimal design problems are easy to solve. The decomposition method which optimize the section areas in the first level and optimize configuration variables in the second level was applied to the plane truss structures. The numerical comparisons with results which are obtained from numerical test for several truss structures with various shapes and any design criteria show that convergence rate is very fast regardless of constraint types and configuration of truss structures. And the optimal configuration of the truss structures obtained in this study is almost the identical one from other results. The total weight couldbe decreased by 5.4% - 15.4% when optimal configuration was accomplished, though there is some difference.