The effect of the consideration of slab dimensions on optimum design of reinforced concrete beams

In the design of reinforced concrete (RC) beams, the slab can be also considered as a part of the beam and a t-shaped cross section is considered. In the presented study, the optimum design of RC beams are investigated for different slab thickness values. Thus, the effect of the consideration of slab dimensions for the optimum design is investigated. In the optimization methodology, an iterative cost optimization process is proposed. The process contains the optimization of design variables such as the cross-section dimensions and amount of rebar of RC beams subjected to flexural moments. In order to find a precise optimum solution without trapping local optimums, a metaheuristic based method called harmony search is employed. The optimum values are chosen according to user selected range and the design constraints. The design constraints are generated according to ACI318- Building code requirements for structural concrete. By the increase of compressive force in the compressive section of the beam, the amount of the rebar shows a decreasing manner and this situation is effective on the optimum design and cost.

Keywords:

Metaheuristic algorithm, Frames Optimization, Teaching learning based optimization,

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