Structural Optimization Computing Platform (SOCP) and SCIA Software

Structural analysis programs usually compute a static model with cross sections given by the engineer or set to reasonable defaults. Any optimization of the structure with respect to a variable, for example weight/cost, is left to the experience of the engineer, usually because adding optimization capabilities to a structural analysis program is not trivial. Many optimization algorithms are available, each one with their own peculiarities, requirements, and performance. The variable to optimize is different for different projects such as material cost, construction cost, first eigen frequency and others. Adding to the complexity is the fact a static or dynamic analysis is computational expensive (time consuming) and thus the algorithms needs to be tuned to perform as few static analyses as possible. Optimization Computing Platform (OCP) is software developed at ISAAR-NTUA, which in combination with widely known structural analysis programs such as SAP2000 and ETABS, can optimize any structure with various algorithms, and with respect to various variables or a combination of them. Recently, OCP is actively developed to be program agnostic, so that it can be linked with any structural analysis program. The program gains painlessly mature and sophisticated optimization capabilities. In this case study OCP platform was linked with SCIA engineering, structural analysis and design software to provide addition optimization capabilities. To validate the software connection one structural examples is tested with very good results. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.