• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.197-206
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• 2003

The optimal design method in cooperation with a nonlinear elastic analysis method was presented. The proposed nonlinear elastic method overcame the drawback of the conventional LRFD method this approximately accounts for the nonlinear effect caused by using the moment amplification factors of and. The genetic algorithm uses a procedure based on the Darwinian notions of the survival of the fittest, where selection, crossover, and mutation operators are used to look for high performance among the sections of the database. They satisfy constraint functions and give the lightest weight to the structure. The objective function was set to the total weight of the steel structure. The constraint functions were load-carrying capacities, serviceability, and ductility requirement. Case studies for a two-dimensional frame, a three-dimensional frame, and a three-dimensional steel arch bridge were likewise presented.