Optimal design for steel structures considering welding cost and constructability of beam-column connection

Abstract

Structural design is usually carried out with a number of repetitive processes in which trial and error between assumptions at each stage on the structural system is done toward the selection of final solutions with an enormous effort of engineers. The authors proposed a design supporting scheme which could center their ability on the essential design processes by saving time for the selection with the use of Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA). In addition, through the various analyses of the steel structure models such as rigid-frame, X-type braced frame and K-type braced frame, it has been clearly shown that we can obtain other alternative design solutions with lower cost and proper drift angle in the proposed structural system. In this paper, the proposed supporting design scheme will be extended and confirmed its validity with considering not only manufacture cost in the process for making steel members and the welding cost for connecting beams and columns as well as steel cost which is considered until now in the scheme but also the penalty function which is given to the optimization problem in order to ensure the constructability of the beam-column connection for more practical use of the supporting design scheme.