M. P. Saka

Middle East Technical University | METU · Department of Engineering Sciences

This chapter presents optimum design of steel buildings with composite slabs subjected to combined loading conditions which includes dead, live, snow and earthquake loads. The buildings may have regular or irregular plans. In the formulation of the design optimization problem minimizing the weight of the building is taken as objective function. The...

In this paper, an optimum design algorithm is presented for reinforced concrete folded plate structures. The design provisions are implemented by ACI 318-11 and ACI 318.2-14, which are quite complex to apply. The design variables are divided into three classes. The first class refers to the variables involving the plates, which are the number of su...

Optimum design of post-tensioned flat slabs with its columns is complicated by the presence of many nonlinear constraints and the non-homogeneous nature of the material used. This study presents three design optimization algorithms where the design provisions are implemented in accordance with ACI 318-11. Design variables are divided into two group...

This study presents a novel enhancement to one of the recent swarm intelligence technique called beetle antenna search (BAS) algorithm. The enhanced algorithm is named (eBAS) and it allows population of beetles as oppose to single beetle as it was the case in the original BAS algorithm. Consideration of population of beetles brings in another capab...

Artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) has been efficiently used to obtain the optimum design of structures under design code limitations. There are several enhancements suggested to improve the performance of ABC even further in the literature. In this paper, the performance of enhanced ABC variants in the optimum design of steel skeletal frames is...

A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords: Tied-arch bridges Built-up sections AASHTO-LRFD provisions Optimum structural design Metaheuristic algorithms Artificial bee colony algorithm Big bang-big crunch algorithm A B S T R A C T In this study, optimum design algorithm is presented for tied-arch bridges under AASHTO-LRFD Bridge Design Specifications provisio...

In this study, innovative insulated nano-concrete forms are presented for building slabs called “ICF slabs” where ICF stands for insulated concrete forms. This system is easy to build and reduces the weight of slabs up to 50%, by eliminating the coarse aggregates and minimizing the use of cement, compared to purely reinforced concrete systems. It p...

In this study optimum design algorithm is presented for tied-arch bridges under AASHTO-LRFD Bridge Design Specifications provisions. In addition to design code requirements, geometrical constraints between its elements that are required for manufacturability of the bridge are also considered. The design process of tied-arch bridges differs from tha...

This study aims to carry out the effect of beam-to-column connections on the minimum weight design of steel plane frames. In the practical analysis of steel frames, end connections are assumed to be either fully restrained or pin-connected. However, experiments reveal that the real behavior is between these extremes and should be taken into account...

Optimum design of real world steel space frames under design code provisions is a complicated optimization problem due to the presence of large numbers of highly nonlinear constraints and discrete design variables. The use of gradient based optimization techniques in finding the optimum solution of such large design problems is cumbersome due to th...

Sustainable development in construction industry is emerging as a major issue among cities and communities in the current century. As global climate change becomes an increasingly serious concern for the future and construction industry dependence on fossil fuels for energy creates greater adverse influence on human health and natural environment,...

In this chapter, the optimum design problem of steel space frames is formulated according to the provisions of LRFD-AISC (Load and Resistance Factor Design-American Institute of Steel Corporation). The weight of the steel frame is taken as the objective function to be minimized. The design optimization problem necessitates selection of steel sectio...

Sustainable development in construction industry is emerging as a major issue among cities and communities in the current century. As global climate change becomes an increasingly serious concern for the future and construction industry dependence on fossil fuels for energy creates greater adverse influence on human health and natural environment,...

Sustainable development in construction industry is emerging as a major issue among cities and communities in the current century. As global climate change becomes an increasingly serious concern for the future and construction industry dependence on fossil fuels for energy creates greater adverse influence on human health and natural environment,...

Sustainable construction aims at reducing the environmental impact of buildings on human health and natural environment by efficiently using energy, resources and reducing waste and pollution. Building construction has the capacity to make a major contribution to a more sustainable future of our World because this industry is one of the largest con...

This paper presents the application of the harmony search based algorithm to the optimum detailed design of special seismic moment reinforced concrete (RC) frames under earthquake loads based on American Standard specifications. The objective function is selected as the total cost of the frame which includes the cost of concrete, formwork and reinf...

The construction industry is one of the largest contributors to global warming. This indicates the importance of adopting sustainable buildings in order to accommodate the urban population increasing by one million people every week. Sustainable construction aims at reducing the environmental impact of buildings on human health and natural environm...

Swarm intelligence refers to collective intelligence. Biologists and natural scientist have been studying the behavior of social insects due to their efficiency of solving complex problems such as finding the shortest path between their nest and food source or organizing their nests. In spite of the fact that these insects are unsophisticated indiv...

In this paper, an improved version of particle swarm optimization based optimum design algorithm (IPSO) is presented for the steel grillage systems. The optimum design problem is formulated considering the provisions of American Institute of Steel Construction concerning Load and Resistance Factor Design. The optimum design algorithm selects the ap...

This chapter presents the fatigue phenomenon process in structural elements and connections. It includes six sections. The first section summarizes fatigue process, the source of fatigue, and the modeling of fatigue in general. The second section is devoted to the calculation of fatigue damages by using different methods. The fracture mechanics and...

This chapter is devoted to the mechanics of space frame structures and presents necessary formulations for the finite element analysis of space frames. It contains eight sections. Section 1.1 is introduction which summarizes briefly the beam theories in general. Section 1.2 presents deformations, equilibrium equations and rotations, differential eq...

This chapter is devoted to ocean wave mechanics and wave forces acting on offshore structures. It contains eleven sections. The first section gives general information on ocean waves. The second section summarizes wave theories with emphasis on Stokes and other nonlinear wave theories. In the third section, the Airy wave theory is explained in more...

This chapter is devoted to the reliability analysis of offshore structures. It contains seven sections. The first section describes uncertainties in general and gives information about the reliability methods. The second section presents basic definitions and structural reliability methods in more detail. Calculation of the reliability index β by t...

A comparative study is carried out on the optimum design of a real-size steel frame by considering three different metaheuristic search techniques. The techniques are selected as the Firefly Algorithm (FFA), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), and Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithms. Metaheuristic search techniques of optimization are non-deterministic methods...

The objective of the current research is to present ultimate load carrying capacities and finite element analysis of optimally designed steel cellular beams under loading conditions. The tests have been carried out on twelve full-scale non-composite cellular beams. There are three different types of NPI_CB_240, NPI_CB_260 and NPI_CB_280 I-section b...

Many optimization techniques have been proposed since the inception of engineering optimization in 1960s. Traditional mathematical modeling-based approaches are incompetent to solve the engineering optimization problems, as these problems have complex system that involves large number of design variables as well as equality or inequality constr...

The type of mathematical modeling selected for the optimum design problems of steel skeletal frames affects the size and mathematical complexity of the programming problem obtained. Survey on the structural optimization literature reveals that there are basically two types of design optimization formulation. In the first type only cross sectional p...

This chapter presents spectral analysis of offshore structures under wave and earthquake actions. It contains six sections. The first section explains problem description and gives some general information. In the second section, formulation of dynamic analysis of offshore structures in the frequency domain, transfer functions of wave, and earthqua...

This chapter is included to provide basic information and essential formulation of random vibration and stochastic analysis that needed in the offshore structural analysis. It contains seven sections. The first section describes briefly random vibration and its occurrence in practice. The second section explains some definitions in the probability...

Optimization techniques are widely applied to determine the optimum solution of structural design problems. This chapter introduces first the mathematical formulation of optimization problems and then gives summary of the techniques available in obtaining their solution. There are several algorithms, some require the gradient information of the obj...

Particle Swarm method based optimum design algorithm for unbraced steel frames is presented. The Particle Swarm method is a numerical optimization technique that simulates the social behavior of birds, fishes and bugs. In nature fish school, birds flock and bugs swarm not only for reproduction but for other reasons such as finding food and escaping...

Domes are elegant and economical structures used in covering large areas. They are built in various forms. According to their form, they are given special names such as lamella, network, and geodesic domes. In this paper, optimum topological design algorithm is presented that determines the optimum number of rings, the optimum height of crown and t...

The effect of warping in the design of steel space frames having members of thin walled steel sections is significant. In this paper the optimum design problem of steel space frames is formulated according to the provisions of LRFD-AISC (Load and Resistance factor design of American Institute of Steel Construction) in which the effect of warping is...

This paper presents the application of the harmony search based algorithm to the optimum detailed design of special seismic moment reinforced concrete (RC) frames under earthquake loads based on American Standard specifications. The objective function is selected as the total cost of the frame which includes the cost of concrete, formwork and reinf...

Optimum design of steel frames is a complicated process because the designer has to consider a large number of nonlinear constraints which are imposed by steel design codes while also dealing with discrete design variables. Obtaining the optimum solution to discrete programming problems was never easy until the emergence of metaheuristic techniques...

This study intends to improve performance of ant colony optimization (ACO) method for structural optimization problems particularly with many design variables or when design variables are chosen from large discrete sets. The algorithm developed with ACO method employs the so-called pheromone scaling approach to overcome entrapment of the search in...

Harmony search method is widely applied in structural design optimization since its emergence. These applications have shown that harmony search algorithm is robust, effective and reliable optimization method. Within recent years several enhancements are suggested to improve the performance of the algorithm. Among these Mahdavi has presented two ve...

In the present study, performance evaluation of three different metaheuristic techniques is carried out in finding the solution of optimization problems taken from the literature. Three metaheuristic techniques selected are the classical harmony search algorithm, improved harmony search algorithm and particle swarm optimizer. Metaheuristic search t...

Cellular beams became increasingly popular as an efficient structural form since their introduction. Their sophisticated design and profiling process provide greater flexibility in beam proportioning for strength, depth, size and location of circular holes. The main goal of manufacturing these beams is to increase the moment of inertia and section...

The use of cold-formed open thin-walled steel sections in the various types of engineering construction has increased with the economic necessity of providing high strength with low weight and cost. Thus open thin-walled sections are replacing massive reinforced concrete beams in many types of construction. The developed algorithm for this study ob...

This paper presents particle swarm optimization based optimum design algorithm for the grillage systems. The optimum design problem is formulated considering the provisions of LRFD-AISC (Load and Resistance Factor Design, American Institute of Steel Construction). The optimum design algorithm selects the appropriate W-sections for the beams of the...

This paper presents an adaptive harmony search algorithm for solving structural optimization problems. The harmony memory considering rate and pitch adjusting rate are conceived as the two main parameters of the technique for generating new solution vectors. In the standard implementation of the technique appropriate constant values are assigned to...

This study aims at improving the performance of simulated annealing (SA) search technique in real-size structural optimization applications with practical design considerations. It is noted that a standard SA algorithm usually fails to produce acceptable solutions to such problems associated with its poor convergence characteristics and incongruity...

Optimum cost design of reinforced concrete cantilever retaining walls with harmony search algorithm is presented in this paper. The reinforced concrete cantilever retaining wall is the most common type among the retaining wall structures. In the formulation of the optimum design problem the height and thickness of stem, length of toe projection and...

Music-inspired harmony search algorithm is a recently developed metaheuristic technique. It has been extensively used in the development of structural optimization algorithms. Several enhancements are suggested to standard harmony search method. In this paper, firstly these improvements are summarized and later they are used to determine the optimu...

Design optimization of reinforced concrete structures is more challenging than that of steel structures due to the complexity associated with reinforcement design. In this study, optimum design algorithm is presented for reinforced concrete continuous beams. The design variables are selected as the width and the depth of beams in each span, the dia...

In this chapter an improved version of harmony search algorithm called an adaptive harmony search algorithm is presented. The harmony memory considering rate and pitch adjusting rate are conceived as the two main parameters of the technique for generating new solution vectors. In the standard implementation of the technique, appropriate constant va...

This paper proposes a refined version of particle swarm optimization technique for the optimum design of steel structures. Swarm is composed of a number of particles and each particle in the swarm represents a candidate solution of the optimum design problem. Design constraints in accordance with ASD-AISC (Allowable Stress Design Code of American I...

Abstract: An adaptive harmony search algorithm is developed for the optimum design of steel frames. The design algorithm obtains the minimum weight of steel frames by selecting suitable sections from a standard set of steel sections. This selection is carried out in such a way that the performance of the structure is within the limitations describe...

In recent years a number of metaheuristic search techniques have been widely used in developing structural optimization algorithms. Amongst these techniques are genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, evolution strategies, particle swarm optimizer, tabu search, ant colony optimization and harmony search. The primary goal of this paper is to object...

Harmony search based optimum design method is presented for the grillage systems. This numerical technique imitates the musical performance process that takes place when a musician searches for a better state of harmony. Jazz improvisation seeks to find musically pleasing harmony similar to the optimum design process which seeks to find the optimum...

Designing steel skeleton structures optimally is a tedious task for designers. They need to select the appropriate steel sections for the members of a steel frame from a discrete list that is available in the practice. Assigning arbitrarily any one of these sections to any member of the steel frame generates one possible design combination. The tot...

Harmony search method based optimum design algorithm is presented for the steel sway frames. The harmony search method is a numerical optimization technique developed recently that imitates the musical performance process which takes place when a musician searches for a better state of harmony. Jazz improvisation seeks to find musically pleasing ha...

Domes supply unimpeded wide spaces and they encompass a maximum amount of areas with a minimum surface. They are also exceptionally suitable structures for covering places where minimum interference from internal supports are required. The behavior of latticed domes is nonlinear due to change of geometry under external loads. This is due to the imp...

Metaheuristic search techniques strongly employ randomized decisions while searching for solutions to structural optimization problems. These techniques play an increasingly important role for practically solving hard combinatorial problems from various domains. Over the past few years there has been considerable success in developing metaheuristic...

The effect of warping in the design of steel space frames having members of thin walled steel sections is significant. This paper formulates the optimum design problem of steel space frames according to the provisions of LRFD-AISC (Load and Resistance factor design of American Institute of Steel Construction) in which the effect of warping is taken...

This study reviews recent applications of the music-inspired HS algorithm, such as music composition, Sudoku puzzle solving, structural design, ecological conservation, aquifer

Harmony search method based optimum topology design algorithm is presented for single layer lamella domes. The harmony search method is a numerical optimization technique developed recently that imitates the musical performance process which takes place when a musician searches for a better state of harmony. Jazz improvisation seeks to find musical...

In this paper, algorithms are presented for the optimum design of geometrically nonlinear steel space frames using tabu search and genetic algorithm. Tabu search utilizes the features of short-term memory facility (tabu list) and aspiration criteria. Genetic algorithm employs reproduction, crossover and mutation operators. The design algorithms obt...

The spacing between the longitudinal and transverse beams of a grillage system has an important effect in the minimum weight design of these systems. In this study this effect is investigated using an optimum design algorithm which is based on recently developed harmony search algorithm. The optimum design problem of a grillage system is formulated...

The optimum geometry design of geodesic domes presents difficulty due to the fact that the height of the dome keeps on changing during the design process. This in turn makes it necessary to automate the computation of the coordinates of joints in the dome when the height of crown changes. The algorithm presented in this study carries out the optimu...

Single layer latticed domes are lightweight and elegant structures that provide cost-effective solutions to cover the large areas without intermediate supports. The topological design of these structures present difficulty due to the fact that the number of joints and members as well as the height of the dome keeps on changing during the design pro...

Domes are lightweight and cost effective structures that are used to cover large areas. They are mainly comprised of a complex network of triangles made out of slender members. The behaviour of flexible dome is nonlinear under the external loads which makes it necessary to consider the geometrical non-linearity in their analysis to obtain realistic...

Evolutionary structural optimization is applied to determine the optimum shape of steel gusset plates subjected to axial forces. A number of different gusset plates used in various types of connections is considered for this purpose. The evolutionary structural optimization approach is employed to find the optimum shapes of a gusset plate used in t...

Harmony search method based optimum design algorithm is presented for the grillage systems. This numerical technique imitates the musical performance process that takes place when a musician searches for a better state of harmony. Jazz improvisation seeks to find musically pleasing harmony similar to the optimum design process which seeks to find t...

The theorems of structural variation predict the forces and displacements throughout a structure without the need of fresh analysis when the physical properties of one or more members are altered or even its topology is changed due to removal of one or more of its elements. It has been shown that a single linear elastic analysis of a parent structu...

This paper explores the use of artificial neural networks in predicting the failure load of castellated beams. 47 experimental data collected from the literature cover the simply supported beams with various modes of failure, under the action of either central single load, uniformly distributed load or two-point loads acting symmetrically with resp...

The pitched roof steel frames appear to be the simplest structural form used in single storey buildings. However, its design necessitates consideration of many different structural criteria that are required in the design of complex structures. In this paper, a genetic algorithm is used to develop an optimum design method for pitched roof steel fra...

A genetic algorithm based optimum design method is presented for nonlinear multistorey steel frames with semi-rigid connections. The design algorithm obtains optimum frame by selecting appropriate sections from standard steel section tables while satisfying the serviceability and strength limitations specified in BS5950. The algorithm accounts for...

Genetic algorithms have attracted great attention due to their ability to provide a solution to discrete optimum design problems. In this study, a genetic algorithm is presented for the optimum design of grillage systems to decide the cross-sectional properties of members from a standard set of universal beam sections. The deflection limitations an...

This paper presents a genetic algorithm based optimum design method for multi-storey non-swaying steel frames with different types of bracing. The design method obtains a frame and bracing system with the least weight by selecting appropriate sections for beams, columns and bracing members from the standard set of steel sections. The algorithm acco...

The realistic modeling of beam-to-column connections plays an important role in the analysis and design of steel frames. A genetic algorithm based optimum design method is presented for nonlinear multistorey steel frames with semi-rigid connections. The design algorithm obtains a frame with the least weight by selecting appropriate sections from a...

This study explores the use of artificial neural networks in predicting the ultimate shear strength of reinforced-concrete deep beams. One hundred eleven experimental data collected from the literature cover the simple case of a simply supported beam with two point loads acting symmetrically with respect to the centerline of the span. The data are...