Building Structural System Lateral Load Optimization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional CAD applications are inefficient in exploring the overall design space for structural systems, leading to suboptimal designs for buildings under lateral loads due to computational complexity and time constraints, often resulting in conservative decisions that neglect weight minimization objectives.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that uses optimization algorithms to sequentially generate and refine designs for structural systems, breaking down the design optimization problem into simpler aspects, allowing for systematic exploration of the design space and distribution of lateral loads across frames to optimize structural configurations.
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 basic computational resources, but the design space exploration is inefficient and produces suboptimal designs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the overall structural system design into multiple independent frame-based sub-problems. Each frame is analyzed separately for lateral load resistance, allowing the design space to be explored systematically across multiple frames rather than attempting to optimize the entire complex system at once. This segmentation enables efficient exploration while maintaining design quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent systematically varies design parameters such as frame configuration, structural member sizes, and material properties across multiple design iterations. By changing these parameters methodically and evaluating their impact on lateral load resistance, the system efficiently explores the design space to identify optimized configurations that conventional methods would miss.
2Reliability
If finite element analysis solver is used to evaluate design decisions, then design validation is thorough, but the design refinement process becomes very time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the structural system into separate frame segments that can be analyzed independently. This segmentation allows finite element analysis to be applied to smaller, more manageable sub-problems rather than the entire complex building structure, significantly reducing computation time while maintaining validation accuracy for each frame's lateral load resistance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary frame-based analysis and optimization before conducting comprehensive finite element analysis on the complete structural system. This preliminary action identifies promising design configurations early, allowing subsequent detailed analysis to focus only on the most viable options, thereby reducing overall design refinement time.
3Reliability
If structural engineer makes conservative design decisions, then the likelihood of design acceptance increases, but weight minimization objectives are neglected
Solution Approach 1:
The patent systematically varies structural member sizes, frame configurations, and material properties through multiple design iterations. This parameter exploration allows the identification of optimized designs that achieve both weight minimization and adequate lateral load resistance, moving beyond conservative default choices to find the optimal balance between weight and performance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements iterative feedback loops where each design is evaluated for both weight and lateral load resistance performance. Designs that fail to meet performance criteria are refined and re-evaluated, allowing the process to converge on optimized solutions that achieve weight minimization without sacrificing design acceptance probability.
4Adaptability or versatility
If multiple baseline designs are generated and refined, then design options increase, but the computational complexity and time required increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent generates multiple baseline designs by segmenting the structural system into frames and varying frame configurations independently. This approach creates design variety at the frame level without requiring complex whole-system redesigns, increasing adaptability while keeping the design process manageable through systematic frame-based variations.
Data Source
AI summary
In various embodiments, an iterative sizing application designs a structural system of a building to resist a lateral load. The iterative sizing application sequentially executes optimization algorithms on first sizing data included in a first computer-aided design of the structural system based on constraint(s) and optimization criterion(s) to generate a second computer-aided design of the structural system. Subsequently, the iterative sizing application distributes the lateral load across frames specified in the second computer-aided design to generate frame-based lateral loads. The iterative sizing application then performs computer operation(s) on sizing datasets included in the second computer-aided design based on the frame-based lateral loads to generate new sizing datasets that, when applied to the frames, configure the frames to resist the lateral load. Based on the second computer-aided design and the new sizing datasets, the iterative sizing application generates a third computer-aided design of the structural system.