Heuristic approach to steel frame structural optimisation

Heuristic approach in structural optimization has one major disadvantage related to long computational times and many advantages. In heuristic approach it is easy to deal with non-continuous constraints and discrete variables. The solving process is very robust and it does not suffer from numerical difficulties very much. In our case of optimisation of steel planar frames the heuristic approach in the form of genetic algorithms is used as a parallel optimisation process to mathematical programming algorithm. The parallel approach is used for a better assessment of the results of the optimization process. In the paper all the modifications made to the basic genetic algorithm operators of initialization and mutation are presented and discussed. They were introduced to accelerate the optimisation process and to improve the solutions. In the last part of the paper a numerical parametric analysis is presented showing the influence of implemented modifications on the accuracy of solutions.