Dr. Josephine Carstensen and Dr. Masoud Akbarzadeh are co-organizing the Optimized Structural Design Session for Structures Congress 2022. High-quality submissions will become part of a special issue on the same topic in the Journal of Structural Engineering.

Session description: Novel Building and Bridge Design with Structural Optimization

The following session proposal abstract is sponsored by the Optimal Structural Design committee. This is a continuation of optimization sessions organized at Structural Congresses in the past years. This session always has excellent attendance and is received well by the audience. The presentations touch upon topics on how to improve the efficiency of our structures via state-of-the-art optimization techniques that go beyond ordinary code check structural design. In this session, the presentations are often strong on the optimal design of large-scale and statement structures such as tall buildings, long-spanning bridges, and entrance canopies. For such typologies of structures, the shape, size, and topology of the design significantly influence the structural efficiency and the self-weight.

Moreover, the fabrication/construction methods will play an essential role in realizing such efficient concepts as small changes in the design and construction method can introduce dramatic effects on performance alterations. With the emergence of various novel structural form-finding methods, the structural optimization research also starts to explore novel/emerging ways of construction and innovative workflows that allow materializing complex yet efficient, optimized structural forms. With the rapid development of manufacturing technologies, the construction of previously challenging structural geometries is now simplified.

Therefore, besides topics related to shape, size, and topology optimization, this year, the session invites new research endeavors related to the materialization of optimized structures. The session will include the following research topics: geometry-based structural optimization methods, innovative construction/fabrication methods; efficient workflows for design to materialization; practical applications of optimized structural forms; quantifying parameters related to the constructability, implicit vs. explicit geometric modeling; and additive manufacturing techniques for optimized structures. Presenters in this session include practitioners as well as academia, providing different views on similar topics.

The deadline for session proposals is June 15, 2021, so it would be wonderful if you send your abstracts to masouda@upenn.edu or jvcar@mit.edu by June 13th, 2021. The submission process does not require authors to submit individual abstracts, but rather that abstracts are collected in session proposals that are submitted together by the session organizers.