Automatic Optimal Design of Steel Modular Buildings Under Different Wind Load Levels

Abstract

The modular structure is ideal for buildings with repeatable units as its advantages of the reduced on-site construction schedule, improved quality, and reduced environmental impacts. The design of modular structure doesn’t need to be the same as the traditional structural design which adopts the process of trial and error methodology to try to search a “feasible solution” that satisfies the structural design criteria. In this paper, an automatic optimal design method is developed for steel modular buildings. The proposed design method integrates computer technology and advanced optimal method into engineering practice to make the structural design of steel modular buildings automatically, quickly, and accurately under different wind load levels. The critical components are firstly indicated by redundancy and sensitivity analysis results, and the optimal design results are then obtained by the iteration procedure. This study realized the proposed design method by coding a program. The design results of a steel frame structure obtained by traditional design method and the automatic optimal design method developed in this paper are compared to show the accuracy and efficiency of the automatic optimal design method.KeywordsModular structureSensitivity analysisAutomatic optimal design