Multi-Level Neural Networks for Progressive Structural Design

점진적 구조설계를 위한 다단계 인공신경망

Artificial neural networks(ANN) have been exploited where the relationship among information is very complicated and nonlinear. It is appropriate to computerize the information and knowledge used in the preliminary design stage where it lacks of formality of representation of designers' experience and intuition. However, most designers start the preliminary design stage with very little information. Therefore, the ANN model for this stage must be designed to have input much less than output. This case usually causes big troubles such as in learning time, convergence and reliability of solutions. To address this problem, this paper proposes multi-level neural networks for progressive structural design considering that all the design information can not be obtained at a time but are growing gradually. The use of multi-level networks developed in this paper has been proved its validity by applying it to the preliminary design of cable-stayed bridges.