Extended evolutionary structural optimization method for multi-storey buildings

This study extends the Evolutionary Structural Optimization (ESO) method for\ud application to multi-storey buildings. The objective is to find the optimal\ud topologies of multi-storey buildings subject to overall stiffness or displacement\ud constraints. It emphasizes the derivation of a methodology to help the structural\ud designers to choose the optimal topology among many topologies that are\ud generated during the evolutionary optimization process. Other problems of the\ud ESO method such as the termination condition, sharp change in structural mean\ud compliance or constrained displacements are also investigated.\ud The new added features provide the ESO method with the capability of dealing\ud with structures containing different types of finite elements. For the structure\ud being considered, only continuum elements are allowed to be removed during\ud the optimization process while beam elements are assumed to be fixed and are\ud referred to as a non-design domain. By having all the topologies with the same\ud weight as the initial structure, the performance of these topologies can be\ud evaluated by comparing the mean compliance or constrained displacements.\ud The results of this study show the extended ESO method can effectively find\ud efficient bracing systems for multi-storey buildings