The economy of the steel truss girder bridge superstructure, used extensively in medium and long span ranges, is affected by many factors such as the cost of material, dictated by the configuration and depth of truss, shape and size of members, and cost of fabrication. Most conventional methods of optimization deal with only member optimization assuming only continuous design variables, leading...

We formulate a truss topology optimization problem as a bilevel programming problem and solve it by means of a line search type inexact restoration algorithm. We discuss details of the implementation and show results of numerical experiments.

A novel hybrid FRP-aluminum truss system has been employed in a two-rut modular bridge superstructure composed of twin inverted triangular trusses. The actual flexural behavior of a one-rut truss has been previously investigated under the on-axis loading test; however, the structural performance of the one-rut truss subjected to an off-axis load is still not fully understood. In this paper, a g...

1. Abstract In this paper we study concurrent material and structural optimum design of hollow plate with truss-like material based on a micropolar continua representation. The optimization formulation has two classes of design variables, relative density and local aperture distribution of truss-like material, under the given total material volume constraints. Three different objectives, which ...

Design optimization of a class of plane trusses called the N-Shaped Truss (NST) is addressed. The parametric model of NST presented is intended for real-world application, avoiding simplifications of the design details that compromise the applicability. The model, which includes twenty-seven discrete variables concerning topology, configuration and sizing of the truss, presents a challenging op...

A geometry-based rigorous approach to the detection of global and internal mobility of skeletal structures (trusses and frames) is presented. The method is useful for automated design of skeletal structures at the conceptual stage where the overall topology of the structure is known, but no exact detail on geometry and size is available. Such topologies are, for example, those generated by inte...