TALK: DESIGN SPACE EXPLORATION BY STRUCTURAL OPTIMIZATION

Nowadays, civil and architectural engineers are confronted to increasing demands to reduce the cost of lightweight structures, while accounting for the environmental impact, the safety, and the comfort, and (last but not least) by attempting to propose innovative and inspiring designs. For that multifaceted purpose, structural optimization offers a comprehensive set of methods to get the best sizing, shape, and topology parameters. In this talk, the basic concepts of structural optimization will be presented, followed by recent research investigations on the geometry and topology optimization of trusses and grid shells based on a simultaneous analysis and design approach, and applied to bridges and dome structures. Finally, the current collaboration project with the Form Finding Lab on robust design will be briefly discussed.