From least-weight to least-environmental-impacting truss structures: A method to minimize the total environmental cost with the Ground Structure Method for the welding, coating and construction material

Climate change is changing the world. Where previously efficient use of materials was mainly applied to realize cost savings, this can also help to reduce the footprint of a construction. There is a rather direct and obvious relationship between the amount of material required in a construction and its environmental impact. Of course, the...

Truss topology optimization with reused steel elements: An optimization tool for designing steel trusses with a set of reclaimed elements

Recycling and reuse of structures and elements is important to reduce the carbon footprint of the building industry. Reuse requires much less energy than recycling and therefore has much potential. However, reuse is still rarely put in practice due to the many challenges constructing with reuse involves. One of these challenges is the complex...

Hybrid truss layout optimization for generating multiple design alternatives

As of writing this thesis little research has been done in truss layout optimization for multiple design alternatives. A hybrid scheme is proposed in which the fast gradient-based search of the Ground Structure Method (GSM) is employed for the search of optimal topology and size, while a population-based meta-heuristic algorithm explores the non...

Optimizing the concrete load-bearing structure of high-rise buildings: Combining the ground structure method with a recursive resizing algorithm on a case study

Theshortage in housing and office spaces, combined with the desire of people tolive in densely populated cities results in a lack of space. A proposedsolution can be found in the usage of high-rise buildings. Nowadays there ismore awareness for the environment, thus this research tries to reduce theenvironmental impact of a...