Optimization Methods for Design of Spatial Structures

Optimization methods are presented for design of shells and spatial structures. The effectiveness of using optimization techniques are demonstrated by the following examples: 1. Shape design of ribbed shells. 2. Shape design of membrane structures. 3. Optimization of single-layer spatial truss against buckling. 4. Application of heuristic methods to optimization of space frames. The readers may first see the numerical results to find that is possible by optimization. In the appendix, overview of structural optimization in architectural design is presented, and effectiveness of optimization is demonstrated by small examples. Each chapter is a part of a published paper, or translation from a Japanese article. So there might be some difficulties for understanding the details: inconsistency of the story, etc., which the author hope not to lead to major difficulties for understanding the concepts and results.