Abstract
Since tremendous resources are consumed in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, the sustainability and efficiency in this field have received increasing concern in the past few decades. With the advent and development of computational tools and information technologies, structural optimization based on mathematical computation has become one of the most commonly used methods for the sustainable and efficient design in the field of civil engineering. However, despite the wide attention of researchers, there has not been a critical review of the recent research progresses on structural optimization yet. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to comprehensively review the previous research on structural optimization, provide a thorough analysis on the optimization objectives and their temporal and spatial trends, optimization process, and summarize the current research limitations and recommendations of future work. The paper first introduces the significance of sustainability and efficiency in the AEC industry as well as the background of this review work. Then, relevant articles are retrieved and selected, followed by a statistical analysis of the selected articles. Thereafter, the selected articles are analyzed regarding the optimization objectives and their temporal and spatial trends. The four major steps in the structural optimization process, including structural analysis and modelling, formulation of optimization problems, optimization techniques, and computational tools and design platforms, are also reviewed and discussed in detail based on the collected articles. Finally, research gaps of the current works and potential directions of future works are proposed. This paper critically reviews the achievements and limitations of the current research on structural optimization, which provide guidelines for future research on structural optimization in the field of civil engineering.
Highlights
Civil engineering is defined as a discipline dealing with the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of buildings and infrastructures including a variety of works such as residence, bridges, and roads [1]
The top three continents are Asia, Europe, and North America, which have published 79, 66, and 36 papers, respectively, which altogether account for 92% of the total number of the collected papers
All of the articles aiming at structural related to this theme, which account for 70% of the total number of pape performance improvement collected in this period are based on topology optimization, Since or volumeis achieved of a structure constitutes a considerable in whichweight design optimization by eliminating subsystems with negligible part con- of the tributions to structural performance while satisfying prescribed criteria
Summary
Civil engineering is defined as a discipline dealing with the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of buildings and infrastructures including a variety of works such as residence, bridges, and roads [1]. Zheng et al [21] presented an explicit topology optimization method, namely transformable triangular mesh (TTM) method, for structural topology optimization, which is able to obtain the optimal solution more effectively compared with other state-of-the-art algorithms These abovementioned studies in the field of structural optimization presented the achievements and potential of structural optimization to improve the efficiency and sustainability of the civil engineering industry. This paper aims to comprehensively review the state-of-the-art literature on structural optimization in the field of civil engineering, including the analysis of the optimization objectives and their temporal and spatial trends, analysis of the optimization processes with four major steps, and the discussions of research limitations and recommendations of future works.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
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
