Form finding of structural reused material trusses with graphic statics

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.