Universitätsbibliothek
Weimar Open Access

Yohannes L. Alemu, Bedilu Habte, Tom Lahmer, Girum Urgessa

• As an optimization that starts from a randomly selected structure generally does not guarantee reasonable optimality, the use of a systemic approach, named the ground structure, is widely accepted in steel-made truss and frame structural design. However, in the case of reinforced concrete (RC) structural optimization, because of the orthogonal orientation of structural members, randomly chosen orAs an optimization that starts from a randomly selected structure generally does not guarantee reasonable optimality, the use of a systemic approach, named the ground structure, is widely accepted in steel-made truss and frame structural design. However, in the case of reinforced concrete (RC) structural optimization, because of the orthogonal orientation of structural members, randomly chosen or architect-sketched framing is used. Such a one-time fixed layout trend, in addition to its lack of a systemic approach, does not necessarily guarantee optimality. In this study, an approach for generating a candidate ground structure to be used for cost or weight minimization of 3D RC building structures with included slabs is developed. A multiobjective function at the floor optimization stage and a single objective function at the frame optimization stage are considered. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) method is employed for selecting the optimal ground structure. This method enables generating a simple, yet potential, real-world representation of topologically preoptimized ground structure while both structural and main architectural requirements are considered. This is supported by a case study for different floor domain sizes.…