A new implementation of the force method and the optimum design of large trusses

Abstract

AbstractAn implementation of the force method is proposed in which the forces and the displacements are simultaneously obtained by the solution of a sparse symmetric indefinite system. The matrix of coefficients is formed by just the concatenation of the element flexibility and equilibrium matrices. No computational procedure is required to generate the compatibility conditions (or the self‐stress matrix) and no partitioning of the force vector is made into a basic set and a redundant set, unlike the conventional force method. A slightly modified sparse unsymmetric system can be written in which the stresses and the displacements are the unknowns. This is used as constraints in the formulation of the minimum weight design problem for large structures under static loading conditions. A sparse generalized reduced gradient package is used as the optimizer. A class of test problems involving large truss structures is solved. The results indicate that the present implementation of the force method is better than the displacement method for the optimum design of large structures.