Otimização topológica aplicada ao projeto conceitual de estruturas de cabos sujeitas a deformações finitas

Abstract

The design of civil construction structures is commonly associated to three general steps: structural conception, sizing, and analysis and verification. It is an approach highly dependent on the experience and creativity of the designer, and is tied to an trial and error strategy. This work aims to formulate and to implement computational models based on topology optimization to assist on the definition of initial structural conception of cable-based structures. The mathematical formulation proposed in this work incorporates multiple load cases, nodal cost and a constitutive model of cables with limit resistance. The results show that topology optimization tools can be used to suggest initial structural conception, assisted by a mathematical method, and with the potential of break the pattern of traditional topologies, unlocking designer’s creativity. However, structural systems based solely on cables are rare, and therefore for the features presented in this work to have a direct application in industry, there is still the need to evolve the formulation presented here, also incorporating elements resistant to compression actions.