Form finding of structural reused material trusses with graphic statics
Name
1192460696-MIT.pdf
Size
43.67 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
bed9ad35c568dac9541330a7bffa3b15
Author(s)
Seats, Daniel Campbell.
Advisor(s)
Josephine V. Carstensen.
Date Issued
2020
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Reuse of structural steel elements is an active area of research that has great potential and is relatively unexplored due to a lack of design methods. This thesis presents a design framework that uses graphic statics to automatically generate truss designs based on a library of preexisting elements. Three variations of the framework are presented that allow different levels of geometric constraints to be imposed by the design engineer, namely limited angular geometric constraints, an encouraged quasi-flat top chord, and a forced flat top chord. Each variation is tested with several design examples, using two different sized element libraries. The frameworks produce designs quickly and have integrated stochasticity, and thus are capable of rapidly providing a wide set of diverse designs. To show the range of possible designs each variation is used to produce 100 designs. It has been found that the number of unique designs largely depends on the size of the library was well as the imposed geometric constraints. Generally speaking, it was found that larger libraries contribute to decreases in wasted material to build truss elements while generally having a slightly higher total load path within the trusses.
Description
Thesis: M. Eng. in Structural Mechanics and Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, May, 2020
Cataloged from the official PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 105-106).
Subjects
Civil and Environmental Engineering.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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