A comparison between different techniques for optimum design of steel frames subjected to blast

Abstract

According to the conditions of today's world, design of resistant structures against blast loading is an important subject that requires special attention. Thus, given the benefits of optimization in engineering, development and assessment of optimization methods for optimum design of structures against blast is of great importance. In this research, the optimum design of steel frame structures against blast loading is investigated. For this purpose first an optimization methodology is proposed. In the proposed method the structural analysis is performed using nonlinear explicit finite element analysis. Based on the proposed method a framework is developed and three numerical examples are investigated using different numerical optimization techniques. Results of this study show that by using nonlinear explicit FE analysis as the structural analysis method and NLPQLP optimization technique as the optimization method, the current optimization problem can be performed effectively, because the procedure is relatively accurate and computationally inexpensive.