Behaviour of reinforced concrete rectangular sections based on tests complying with seismic construction requirementsThe prediction of the seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete elements using numerical models has become a field of growing interest in recent years due to the importance of the effects induced by seismic loads applied to reinforced concrete structures. The simulation of the hysteretic behaviour of the plastic hinges generated in the structure when the seismic load acts requires the use of models that are able to describe the sectional behaviour of structural members. Thus, the main objective of the present paper is the adjustment of several empirical expressions that reduce the computational time needed to simulate the yield and ultimate behaviour of a given reinforced concrete rectangular section under either monotonic or cyclic loading. The expressions are calibrated with a selection of tests, taken from a published database of more than 1000 tests, according to the criterion that the selected specimens comply with the seismic construction requirements of the main international building codes . Owing to their robustness and the acceptable computation time for low-dimensional problems, genetic algorithms are used for this calibration. The equations proposed can be employed by structural engineers for the design and analysis of actual structural elements used in ordinary reinforced concrete buildings located in seismic areas, and provide more accurate results than other expressions.
A numerical procedure is proposed in this paper for achieving the minimum cost design of reinforced concrete rectangular sections under compression and biaxial bending by using biologically-inspired meta-heuristic optimization algorithms. The problem formulation includes the costs of concrete, reinforcement and formwork, obtaining the detailed optimum design in which the section dimensions and the reinforcement correspond to values used in practice. The formulation has been simplified in order to reduce the computational cost while ensuring the rigor necessary to achieve safe designs. The numerical procedure includes the possibility of using high-strength concrete and several design constraints, such as minimum reinforcement and limiting the neutral axis depth. Two numerical examples are presented, drawing comparisons between the results obtained by ACI318 and EC2 standards.
A simple formulation for the optimal design of reinforced concrete sections under compression and biaxial bending was established in a previous work by the authors. In that work, it was found that the formulation produced satisfactory results when used together with three algorithms that belong to the nature-inspired meta-heuristic algorithm group. However, despite the favorable results obtained, the necessary calculation times were extensive in all the cases. In order to solve this problem, the authors implemented a parallel calculation strategy in the algorithm that gave better results in the previous work. It was possible to verify, through two examples, that this strategy reduces calculation times as more processes are used in parallel, and that the adjustments made in the algorithm favor reaching designs close to the global optimum independently of the number of parallel processes adopted.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.