Optimum Design of Steel Skeleton Structures

Designing steel skeleton structures optimally is a tedious task for designers. They need to select the appropriate steel sections for the members of a steel frame from a discrete list that is available in the practice. Assigning arbitrarily any one of these sections to any member of the steel frame generates one possible design combination. The total number of such combinations is quite large and finding out which one these combinations produces the optimum design by trial is almost practically impossible. The harmony search algorithm is a recently developed technique for determining the solution of such combinatorial optimization problems. In this chapter, harmony search algorithm based optimum design methods are introduced for moment resisting steel frames, grillage systems, geodesic domes and cellular beams. The design problems of these steel structures are carried out according to British and American Design Codes respectively. The design examples considered in both structural systems have shown that harmony search algorithm is an effective and robust technique to find the optimum solutions of combinatorial structural optimization problems.