Many methods have been developed for structural size and configuration optimization in which cross-sectional areas are usually assumed to be continuous. In most practical structural engineering design problems, however, the design variables are discrete. This paper proposes two efficient structural optimization methods based on the harmony search (HS) heuristic algorithm that treat both discret...

This paper was presented at: • SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineers), June 1993, Nashville, Tenn • International Conference on Structural Dynamics, Vibration, Noise, and control, December 1995, Hong Kong. • InterNoise ’96 (1996 International Congress on Noise Control Engineering), August 1996, Liverpool, U.K. • This paper is also printed in “Mfg.”, which is the Brown and Sharpe in-house tech...

This paper presents a new method for computing the pseudospectra of a matrix that respects a prescribed sparsity structure. The pseudospectrum is defined as the set of points in the complex plane to which an eigenvalue of the matrix can be shifted by a perturbation of a certain size. A canonical form for sparsity preserving perturbations is given and a computable formula for the corresponding s...

The paper analyses in a systematic manner these structural factors of interfaces in relation to their properties that constitute the background of "interface engineering". It is shown that the specific properties of interfaces are related to their structure. A brief description of recent structural models of interfaces is therefore presented. A new concept of interface microstructure composed o...

Design of blast resistant structures is an important subject in structural engineering, attracting the attention of governments, researchers, and engineers. Thus, given the benefits of optimization in engineering, development and assessment of optimization methods for optimum design of structures against blast is of great importance. In this research, multi-objective optimization of steel momen...