THESIS
2019
xxiv, 137 pages : illustrations ; 30 cm
Abstract
Reinforced concrete (RC) structural design optimization has been undertaken for several
decades and plays an important role in maximizing the reliability, cost efficiency, and environmental sustainability of RC structures. However, optimization of RC structural design is challenging and requires advanced strategies during different life cycle phases
of RC structures. Over the past few decades, substantial fundamental research efforts in
RC structural design optimization have been undertaken, but there is a lack of a comprehensive
review of these efforts that can provide academic and industry practitioners with
sufficient detailed insights. Therefore, this research introduces a critical evaluation of previous
research related to the optimization of RC structures for minimizing the...[
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Reinforced concrete (RC) structural design optimization has been undertaken for several
decades and plays an important role in maximizing the reliability, cost efficiency, and environmental sustainability of RC structures. However, optimization of RC structural design is challenging and requires advanced strategies during different life cycle phases
of RC structures. Over the past few decades, substantial fundamental research efforts in
RC structural design optimization have been undertaken, but there is a lack of a comprehensive
review of these efforts that can provide academic and industry practitioners with
sufficient detailed insights. Therefore, this research introduces a critical evaluation of previous
research related to the optimization of RC structures for minimizing the amount of
construction materials, the material cost, and the environmental effects, with more emphasis
on detailing design (such as steel reinforcement), aiming to identify the common
research themes and highlight the future directions. Based on the critical evaluation,
the portfolio of 348 available research articles presents the identified research gaps and
potential future research directions. For example, the adoption of clash-free rebar design
optimization, detailing design optimization of complex and irregular RC components, and
the concentration of design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) aspects, are seldom
conducted and studied.
Moreover, steel reinforcement detailing design of RC structures is one of the common
and important tasks in building construction. Currently, despite having introduced advanced
computing technologies in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, the rebar detailing design process is still predominantly performed by manual or at least semi-manual approaches, with the aid of computer software packages following
the regional design codes. Manual or semi-manual perspectives often result in conservative,
uncertain, and sometimes unacceptable outcomes. Additionally, the simple design
of RC structural elements can potentially face constructability issues such as congestion,
collision, and complexity which may cause complications during the procurement
of rebars and other elements all along the construction phase. These issues also hinder
concrete pouring and as a result, generate improper compounding of concrete with the
rebars which disturb the integrity of the RC structure. All these concerns substantially
increase the construction cost, time and quality and thus are uneconomical for AEC
industry stakeholders. Although a few previous studies have conducted detailing design
optimization of RC structures, very little attention has been given to the above-mentioned
issues. Therefore, this research also aims to develop a holistic BIM-based framework utilizing
the different meta-heuristic algorithms (such as SGA, SGA-SQP, and PSO-SQP,
etc.) for the optimal detailing design of RC solid slabs, considering the minimization of
overall construction cost. The main objective function determines the overall minimized
construction cost of the RC solid slab, including the cost of steel reinforcement bars in
all reinforcing layers, the cost of concrete, and the cost of labor for installing the steel
reinforcement bars and pouring the concrete in the RC solid slab. The optimization
process is handled in such a way that the first stage optimizes the steel reinforcement
present in all four reinforcing layers (two layers each at the bottom and top of solid
slab), while the second stage optimizes the solid slab thickness based on the characteristic
concrete strength. For the optimum design to be directly constructible without any
further alterations, aspects such as available standard rebar diameters, spacing requirements
of the rebars, relevant regional design provisions (i.e. British Standards), and the
above-mentioned constructability (more specifically clash-avoidance) concerns, are also
incorporated into the development of optimization model. In this research, a case study
of a typical RC solid slab containing one-way and two-way spanning slab panels is analyzed
to investigate the capabilities of the proposed framework. The results demonstrate
the potential of the developed model in producing optimum and realistic design solutions.
The developed model can be utilized as a design tool to retrieve economical design solutions at the early-stage structural detailing design.
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