Least Cost Design of R.C Singly Reinforced Concrete Beams Using ANN

Optimization means making things the best. Thus, structural optimization is the subject of making an assemblage of materials that sustains loads in the best way. To fix ideas, think of a situation where a load is to be transmitted from a region in space to a fixed support. We want to find the structure that performs this task in the best possible way. However, to make any sense out of that objective we need to specify the term “best.” The first such specification that comes to mind may be to make the structure as light as possible, i.e., to minimize weight. Another idea of “best” could be to make the structure as stiff as possible, and yet another one could be to make it as insensitive to buckling or in stability as possible. Another idea best to get satisfactory structure with least cost. Clearly such maximizations or minimizations cannot be performed without any constraints. For instance, if there is no limitation on the amount of material that can be used, the structure can be made stiff without limit and we have an optimization problem without a well defined solution.