MULTILEVEL SYNTHESIS OF STANDARD BUILDING STRUCTURES

Abstract

An approach for the synthesis of standard building structures consisting of a roof, wall, and foundation subsystems, is presented. The design variables describe the geometry of the structure, subsystem types, and subsystem properties (configuration and dimensions). The constraints are related to functional requirements, relationships between subsystem types, and subsystem variables (side and behavior limitations). The objective function represents the overall cost of the structure. The proposed approach is based on a multilevel formulation and explicit approximations of the optimal cost in terms of the variables. The subsystem variables are selected in the first level; the subsystem type is chosen in the second level; and the geometric variables are optimized in the third level. The three levels are solved iteratively until the final solution is reached. Several means are applied to increase the solution efficiency and numerical examples illustrate the solution procedure. The model developed may be used as a tool for investigating the sensitivity of the optimal design to changes in unit costs, geometric constraints, subsystem type constraints, etc.