Affiliations: Department of Civil Engineering, Golf Club Road,
Kolkata-700 033, India. dm besu@yahoo.co.in; sdhar b81@rediffmail.com;
jlshan81@rediffmail.com; soubhik sadhu@yahoo.com | Bengal Engineering & Science University, Shibpur,
West Bengal, India-711103. biplab@cs.becs.ac.in
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Department of Computer Science and
Technology, Bengal Engineering & Science University, Shibpur, West Bengal,
India-711103
Abstract: This work proposes graceful application of cellular automata (CA) to
address a well known design problem in civil engineering. A large number of
design alternatives exists regarding the choice of bracing pattern and the
placing of braces in a tall steel building frame. The target is to find a cost
optimal steel structure through proper placing of braces. In the conventional
design procedure, based on the principles of structural engineering, an
extremely large number of design alternatives exists, making it nearly
impossible to arrive at an appropriate design of the bracing system that may
lead to optimum design of the entire structure. The proposed design scheme,
developed around the GF(2^{3}) CA, offers better
alternatives and an easier way to arrive at the near-optimum solution in zero
time. The GF(2^{3}) CA, defined in Galois extension field,
suits the modeling of different braces that are conventionally considered for
designing multi-storied steel building frames. A CA state on the other hand,
corresponds to bracing pattern of a storey and can be tuned to achieve the
desired solution. The exhaustive experimental results point to the fact that
the proposed CA based approach is most effective, while considering the design
of tall building frames, and can reuse a design for scalability.
Keywords: Cellular Automata, steel building frame, bracing pattern
