COST OPTIMIZATION OF RIGIDLY JOINTED REINFORCED CONCRETE FRAME STRUCTURES

Abstract

This work aims at developing an efficient, generalized, automated and computer based solution for multidimensional optimization problem. An automated procedure is developed for optimized design of reinforced concrete
frame structures. The objective function includes the total cost of the structure i.e. the sum of the cost of concrete, steel
and formwork of all the elements of the structure. The design variables include the member sizes and the member
reinforcement for both beams and columns. The constraints arise from the strength and serviceability requirements of
American Concrete Institute (ACI) specifications and codes, based on strength design method are all satisfied. A
Computer program is developed by interlinking Visual Basics .NET (VB.Net) programming language and MATLAB to
automate the performance of the structural analysis, design and optimization of the frame structures. An algorithm is
developed for finding out the local optimum of each element by creating a complete design profile of the element. The
global optimum is thus obtained by summing the individual optima. Two examples are solved to observe the behavior of
the developed algorithm.