Sn. Patnaik et al., MODIFIED FULLY UTILIZED DESIGN (MFUD) METHOD FOR STRESS AND DISPLACEMENT CONSTRAINTS, International journal for numerical methods in engineering, 41(7), 1998, pp. 1171-1194
The traditional fully stressed method performs satisfactorily for stre
ss-limited structural design. When this method is extended to include
displacement limitations in addition to stress constraints, it is know
n as the Fully Utilized Design (FUD). Typically, the FUD produces an o
verdesign, which is the primary limitation of this otherwise elegant m
ethod. We have modified FUD in an attempt to alleviate the limitation.
This new method, called the Modified Fully Utilized Design (MFUD) met
hod, has been tested successfully on a number of problems that were su
bjected to multiple loads and had both stress and displacement constra
ints. The solutions obtained with MFUD compare favourably with the opt
imum results that can be generated by using non-linear mathematical pr
ogramming techniques. The MFUD method appears to have alleviated the o
verdesign condition and offers the simplicity of a direct, fully stres
sed type of design method that is distinctly different from optimizati
on and optimality criteria formulations. The MFUD method is being deve
loped for practicing engineers who favour traditional design methods r
ather than methods based on advanced calculus and non-linear mathemati
cal programming techniques. The Integrated Force Method (IFM) was foun
d to be the appropriate analysis tool in the development of the MFUD m
ethod. In this paper, the MFUD method and its optimality are examined
along with a number of illustrative examples. (C) 1998 John Wiley & So
ns, Ltd.