• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.47-55
• /
• 2008

This paper deals with basic theories and some numerical results on structural optimization for geodesic dome. First of all, the space efficiency of geodesic dome is investigated by using the ratio of icosahedron's surface area to the internal volume enclosed by it. The procedure how to create the geodesic dome is also provided in systematic way and implemented and utilized into the design optimization code ISADO-OPT. The mathematical programming technique is introduced to find out the optimum pattern of member size of geodesic dome against a point load. In this study, total weight of structure is considered as the objective function to be minimized and the displacement occurred at loading point and member stresses of geodesic dome are used as the constraint functions. The finite difference method is used to calculate the design sensitivity of objective function with respect to design variables. The SLP, SQP and MFDM available in the optimizer DoT is used to search optimum member size patterns of geodesic dome. It is found to be that the optimum member size pattern can be efficiently obtained by using the proposed design optimization technique and numerical results can be used as benchmark test as a basic reference solution for design optimization of dome structures.