Shear Wall Layout Optimization in Coordination with Architectural Floor Plans

The cement industry represents the third largest source of carbon-dioxide emissions in the world. A majority of this cement is used in reinforced concrete construction for the creation of building structures and infrastructure. The increasing urbanization of cities is driving the need to build signi...

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Main Author: Philps, Davis Sebastian
Other Authors: Mueller, Caitlin T.
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2022
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145017
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author Philps, Davis Sebastian
author2 Mueller, Caitlin T.
author_facet Mueller, Caitlin T.
Philps, Davis Sebastian
author_sort Philps, Davis Sebastian
collection MIT
description The cement industry represents the third largest source of carbon-dioxide emissions in the world. A majority of this cement is used in reinforced concrete construction for the creation of building structures and infrastructure. The increasing urbanization of cities is driving the need to build significantly more tall buildings. Consequentially, the production of concrete is continuing to increase. As buildings grow taller the lateral system becomes a more significant component of the structural system. Shear walls are a prominent lateral system, but they are large and cumbersome components and thus present architects with a challenge when trying to position shear walls in their floor layouts. Optimizing the lateral system of a tall building is critical, as its material usage increases exponentially with height. Currently, the shear wall design process is inefficient and very cyclical. As a shear wall layout’s structural behavior is dependent on its topology, when the architect is developing the floor layout they have limited insight into how the associated shear wall layout will perform structurally. Thus, it is unlikely that the arrived upon solution will be optimal. The goal of this research is to create an optimization method to reduce the material usage of shear wall layouts that operates quickly enough that it could be integrated into a design tool to mitigate the cyclical design process currently being used. This paper implements a variation on the level set method. As the problem is very discontinuous due to the nature of the shear walls, we can use the level set method to create a more continuous objective function. This will help with the computational performance of the optimization, as well as allow us to later add additional functionality by being able to access the gradients of the objective function. The method presented in this paper is tested by performing method experiments and creating design applications.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1450172022-08-30T03:56:31Z Shear Wall Layout Optimization in Coordination with Architectural Floor Plans Philps, Davis Sebastian Mueller, Caitlin T. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering The cement industry represents the third largest source of carbon-dioxide emissions in the world. A majority of this cement is used in reinforced concrete construction for the creation of building structures and infrastructure. The increasing urbanization of cities is driving the need to build significantly more tall buildings. Consequentially, the production of concrete is continuing to increase. As buildings grow taller the lateral system becomes a more significant component of the structural system. Shear walls are a prominent lateral system, but they are large and cumbersome components and thus present architects with a challenge when trying to position shear walls in their floor layouts. Optimizing the lateral system of a tall building is critical, as its material usage increases exponentially with height. Currently, the shear wall design process is inefficient and very cyclical. As a shear wall layout’s structural behavior is dependent on its topology, when the architect is developing the floor layout they have limited insight into how the associated shear wall layout will perform structurally. Thus, it is unlikely that the arrived upon solution will be optimal. The goal of this research is to create an optimization method to reduce the material usage of shear wall layouts that operates quickly enough that it could be integrated into a design tool to mitigate the cyclical design process currently being used. This paper implements a variation on the level set method. As the problem is very discontinuous due to the nature of the shear walls, we can use the level set method to create a more continuous objective function. This will help with the computational performance of the optimization, as well as allow us to later add additional functionality by being able to access the gradients of the objective function. The method presented in this paper is tested by performing method experiments and creating design applications. M.Eng. 2022-08-29T16:27:31Z 2022-08-29T16:27:31Z 2022-05 2022-06-15T20:49:21.435Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145017 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Philps, Davis Sebastian
Shear Wall Layout Optimization in Coordination with Architectural Floor Plans
title Shear Wall Layout Optimization in Coordination with Architectural Floor Plans
title_full Shear Wall Layout Optimization in Coordination with Architectural Floor Plans
title_fullStr Shear Wall Layout Optimization in Coordination with Architectural Floor Plans
title_full_unstemmed Shear Wall Layout Optimization in Coordination with Architectural Floor Plans
title_short Shear Wall Layout Optimization in Coordination with Architectural Floor Plans
title_sort shear wall layout optimization in coordination with architectural floor plans
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145017
work_keys_str_mv AT philpsdavissebastian shearwalllayoutoptimizationincoordinationwitharchitecturalfloorplans