Structural Optimization of Reinforced Concrete Structures Ashwini R. Kulkarni M.E. Second Year: Dept. of Civil Engineering JSPM’s ICOER, Wagholi Pune, India 412 207 Mr. Vijaykumar Bhusare Asst. Prof. : Dept. of Civil Engineering JSPM’s ICOER, Wagholi Pune, India 412 207 Abstract— The structural optimization plays a vital role in today’s highly competitive industry, where there is continuous increase in customer demand for superior quality, better safety and affordable cost. The conventional ways of design development largely depends on excessive material usage, very high design margins – hence, in turn ending up consuming more material into the structures, buildings. Since last couple of decades, computational power is becoming more efficient and affordable to everyone. This availability of high capacity computational power gave of designer the opportunity for evaluating multiple options during the development phase itself, using finite element analysis methods. Also, the efforts of the researchers helped our field with many innovative and matured algorithms for optimizing the multiple design variables considering given constraints, scenarios at the same time. The combination of high power computation with these algorithms is giving the designers limitless opportunities for managing the development more effectively and efficiently. This paper discusses various optimization techniques and apply them to real world cases like reinforced concrete structures in virtual environment. The study includes survey of structural optimization principles, procedures, software tools available for structural design & analysis. Further, it discusses about the optimization of multi-storey reinforced concrete structures (RCC) building structure using structural analysis software like STAAD-PRO along with modern optimization tools like MINITAB and Evolutionary Algorithm. Keywords— Optimization, Structural analysis, STAAD-Pro, Evolutionary algorithm, DOE I. INTRODUCTION While designing the structures, the optimization plays a crucial role in order to develop cost effective, more robust and safe designs. In general, the structural optimization is performed by “trial and error” or “one factor at a time” methods, although fact is that they are very less effective as well as less efficient. Present optimization techniques are improved significantly over years. The exponential advancement in the computational capabilities in last few decades helped the seamless integration of optimization procedures in structural designs. The primary requirements for optimization are detailed mathematical models based on the physics. Once these models or transfer functions are developed – they can be coupled with suitable optimization algorithm. Specifically for structural design problems, the structural analysis and optimization algorithms are combined through optimization procedure, in order to achieve the desired objectives and solutions. A. Objectives: The objectives of this project work, structural optimization of reinforced concrete structures are mainly as follows:  Survey of historical & recent development in this field  Survey of Optimization Techniques, types, methodologies  Design Analysis and optimization of multi-storey building with the help of STAAD-PRO, MINITAB software and Evolutionary Algorithm. II. LITERATURE REVIEW In order to understand the latest trends and ongoing research development – a focused survey of the white papers, technical articles and journals was performed. Following is the summary of few of the relevant and important papers in the field of optimization of RCC structures. James B. Deaton from Georgia Institute of Technology in Aug 2005, elaborated in details “A finite element approach to Reinforced Concrete Slab Design”. In this work, he explains step by step development of a procedure in GT STRUDL to design reinforced concrete flat plate system based on the results of finite element analysis. The current state-of-practice of reinforced concrete flat plate design was reviewed, including the ACI direct design and equivalent frame techniques, the yield line method, and the strip design method. Additionally, the current state-of-the-art of flat plate design based on finite element results was presented, along with various flat plate modeling techniques. Design methodologies studied included the Wood and Armer approach, based on element stress resultants, and the resultant force approach, based on element forces. Design examples presented include single-panel flat plate systems with various support conditions as well as multi-panel systems with regular and irregular column spacing. The examples additionally showed that when cuts were not oriented orthogonally to the directions of principle bending, resulting designs based on element forces could significantly under- reinforce the cross-section due to significant torsional effects. Another paper presented by Andres Guerra and Panos D. Kiousis from Colorado School of Mines, USA titled “Design optimization of reinforced concrete structures” discusses a novel formulation aiming to achieve optimal design of reinforced concrete (RC) structures is presented here. Optimal sizing and reinforcing for beam and column members in multi-bay and multistory RC structures International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT) ISSN: 2278-0181 http://www.ijert.org IJERTV5IS070156 (This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.) Published by : Vol. 5 Issue 07, July-2016 123