STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF A GENETIC ALGORITHM OPTIMIZED STEEL TRUSS STRUCTURE ACCORDING TO BS 5950

A modern technique in structural optimization known as genetic algorithm was implemented in this paper to optimize a plane steel truss structure under point loadings and is subject to stress and displacement and buckling constraints. The genetic algorithm was developed in the MATLAB software. The genetic algorithm was run thrice on the plane truss structure and the run with the best result was picked as the final optimized truss structure. For each run a minimum of 500 initial population was set. The optimized truss structure gotten from the algorithm were analyzed and designed under dead and imposed loadings to compare and determine the percentage weight reduction and check the feasibility of the optimized truss structure. The software used to analyze and design according to British standard for steel design, BS 5950 was the SAP 2000 software. The results of the analysis and design in the SAP 2000 software showed the feasibility of the optimized truss as it passed all stress and displacement checks. The weight of the original truss problem in the SAP model gave a total weight of 5970.723496 Kg, while the weight of the optimized truss gave a total weight of 3147.1994 Kg showing a weight reduction of about 52%