A SHAPE ANNEALING APPROACH TO OPTIMAL TRUSS DESIGN WITH DYNAMIC GROUPING OF MEMBERS

(A) shape annealing approach to truss topology design is presented tha t considers the tradeoff between the mass of the structure and the gro uping of members, where all members of a group are given the same size . The problem of optimal grouping involves finding a structural design with an optimal number of groups and the optimal sizes for each group . In this paper cross-sectional area is considered as the measure of g roup size. Designs incorporating multiple members with the same cross- sectional area are advantageous when considering the cost of purchasin g and fabricating materials. The shape annealing method is used as an approach to solve this problem by incorporating a method for dynamic g rouping of members based on cross-sectional area that creates a tradeo ff between mass and the number of groups through a weighted objective function that includes a group penalty function, This method is demons trated on transmission tower and general truss problems.