Structural optimisation of steel frames for industrial applications

The paper reports the first results of a work carried out in close collaboration between Astron Buildings SA, a manufacturer of industrial steel buildings, and different groups of civil engineers and mathematicians of the University of Liège to develop an automatic design method for structures with tapered members. This research aims at improving the current method of trialerror followed by experienced engineers to optimize the frames constrained by a chosen
national construction code and the technological constraints of the producer.
The main benefit of this collaboration arises through the application of a mathematical algorithm based on the sequential quadratic programming method (SQP) in order to reduce, in the first step, the weight of the building, under the great number of constraints. The second step, not yet started, will be devoted to the minimization of the real cost of the frame. This report introduces the first results of this industrial application.