Abstract

AbstractDefining a suitable truss model is one of the most important steps of applying the strut‐and‐tie modeling (STM) method to design D‐regions in reinforced concrete (RC) structures. The truss model is a discrete representation of the stress field developed within a region of a concrete element. Topology optimization (TO) methods have been investigated by researchers for about two decades to generate suitable models for the STM method. Several truss models and numerous continuum TO results that could serve as an inspiration for suitable truss models have been proposed. However, limited attention has been paid to the evaluation of various TO results in the perspective of the STM method. As a result, it is at present unclear to what extent TO results offer a benefit for STM modeling, and which method should be preferred. In order to address this gap, an automatic and objective evaluation procedure is proposed in this paper. First, a TO result extraction method is proposed to systematically convert optimized topologies to truss‐like structures. Next, based on the extracted structures, three evaluation measures are formulated to evaluate TO results. These measures indicate whether an analyzable truss model could be extracted, to which extent tensile stress regions are covered by tensile ties and how economical the design will be. The effectiveness of the proposed evaluation procedure is validated using known STM solutions. Subsequently, the evaluation procedure is applied to 23 TO results from the literature, covering three different design problems. Most TO results show a good performance in covering tensile regions and would result in economical designs, and some undesired topologies are also identified by the evaluation method. Nevertheless, the use of continuum TO is most hampered by difficulties in identifying a suitable truss from the TO results.

Highlights

  • Strut-and-tie modeling (STM), a truss analogy method, is a design approach for reinforced concrete structures

  • These measures indicate whether an analyzable truss model could be extracted, to which extent tensile stress regions are covered by tensile ties and how economical the design will be

  • In order to conduct a comparative study of various Topology optimization (TO) approaches for strut-and-tie modeling (STM) modeling, we focus on cases that have been considered in multiple studies

Read more

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Strut-and-tie modeling (STM), a truss analogy method, is a design approach for reinforced concrete structures. An evaluation procedure including three measures is proposed to evaluate the suitability of obtained truss-like structures in the STM method These measures indicate whether a truss model can be extracted from the TO results, to which extent tensile stress regions are covered by tensile ties and how economical the design will be. This is the first study, to our knowledge, that systematically and objectively evaluates the quality and suitability of topology optimization results for the STM method. This leads to recommendations for future TO research to improve its performance for generating strut-and-tie models. The conclusions of this paper are presented in the last section

INTERPRETING TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION RESULTS AS TRUSS-LIKE STRUCTURES
Process of the extraction method for optimized topologies
Thinning phase
Truss extraction phase
EVALUATION PROGRESS OF TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION RESULTS
Framework of the evaluation method
Evaluation measure definition
A simple case for illustration
Problem introduction
Result II Result III
Results
Evaluation results of three cases
Discussions of results
Influence of different material models in the topology optimization
Influence of different settings in the topology optimization method
The axial-force equilibrium requirement
CONCLUSIONS
Full Text
Paper version not known

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call