Building Structural System Design via Floor Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional CAD applications are inefficient in exploring the design space for structural systems, leading to suboptimal designs due to the computational complexity of finite element analysis and the inability to account for all possible design combinations, especially in large and complex buildings.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that performs partitioning operations on building floor outlines to generate segments, designs segment layouts, merges these designs to create floor designs, determines optimal combinations of floor designs based on design objectives, and generates the structural system design accordingly.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If conventional CAD applications are used to generate structural system designs, then the design process can be completed with manual refinement, but the design space exploration is insufficient and computational complexity increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the building floor into multiple segments and generates structural designs for each segment independently. This segmentation allows the system to explore a larger design space more efficiently by breaking down the complex overall design problem into smaller, manageable sub-problems, thereby improving productivity without proportionally increasing computational complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a hierarchical dimension to the design process by organizing designs into segments, then combining segments into floor designs, and finally combining floor designs into complete structural system designs. This dimensional organization enables systematic exploration of design space that would be computationally intractable in a flat approach
2Manufacturing precision
If more design combinations are explored to optimize structural systems, then design quality improves, but the time required to generate and evaluate designs increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the design process into segment-level designs, floor-level combinations, and building-level integrations, the system can evaluate fewer individual combinations at each level while still exploring the comprehensive design space, reducing total evaluation time while maintaining optimization quality
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary segment design generation before floor combination, allowing optimization to be established at the segment level in advance. This preliminary action reduces the computational burden during later floor and building level evaluations
3Loss of time
If conservative design decisions are made to reduce design time, then the design process becomes faster, but the likelihood of achieving optimal designs decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where design evaluations at segment, floor, and building levels inform subsequent design generations. This feedback loop allows the system to learn from previous evaluations and converge on optimal designs more efficiently, reducing the need for conservative time-limiting decisions
Data Source
AI summary
In various embodiments, a gravity design application automatically generates a design for a structural system of a building. The gravity design application performs partitioning operation(s) based on an outline of a first floor included in a computer-aided design of the building to generate a set of segments. Subsequently, the gravity design application generates a set of segment designs based on the set of segments, constraint(s), and design objective(s). The set of segment designs includes at least one segment design for each of the segments included in the set of segments. The gravity design application determines a combination of floor designs from multiple sets of floor designs based the design objective(s), where each set of floor designs is associated with a different floor of the computer-aided design of the building. The gravity design application generates the design for the structural system of the building based on the combination of floor designs.