Predicting trends in structural optimization

Structural optimization is present in the design of many fields. Its use in structural engineering is to allow structural engineers to create efficient structures with unique artistic architectural outlook. In the current practice, the characteristics of the structural optimization are not fully understood. Professional engineers, including those in world's top engineering firms, simply performed the topology optimization on a structure with arbitrary dimensions and applied the optimized shape to structures with different shapes and sizes, thinking the optimized shape is applicable to all. In this research, rectangular models with various heights and lengths are used as examples to generalize the rules on topology optimization for design practice. Both static and dynamic analyses are utilized to evaluate the performance and cost-efficiency of the optimized structures vs. the ones with conventional design.