Structural Optimization in Civil Engineering Classroom: A Twenty-Year Experience Report

The Bachelor degree of Civil Engineering in the University of Coruna has an elective course on Optimum Design of Structures since twenty years ago. That course allows the students to be aware of the meaning of structural design, the way to formulate optimization problems and the variants of this design tool (size, shape, and topology). The students are taught on the algorithmic issues of numerical optimization and work out projects on semi real structural models belonging to different engineering fields. They are also informed on real cases of structural optimization carried out by the faculty of A Coruna University. It has been observed that after completing the course students have their mind ready to apply optimization methodologies to any engineering problem they are confronted with.