weight minimization of truss using strain energy density and genetic algorithm for single and multiple load cases

Minimization of structural weight greatly affects the overall cost of a truss structure. this study focuses on the weight minimization of truss structures using the strain energy (se) criterion and the genetic algorithm (ga) based optimization approaches. single and multiple load cases are considered to obtain the optimum weight of the truss. while designing roof trusses, wind loads need to be considered alongside the existing dead and live loads. the novelty of this study lies in the fact that two of the proposed algorithms consider the multiple load cases to be applied on the roof truss successively. the complete algorithm and flowcharts proposed for both the cases using strain energy and ga-based method are presented in detail. fortran-based computer programs are developed to verify the efficiency of the proposed algorithms. initially, the optimum weights are validated with the existing literature and then some new case studies have been suggested based on the proposed algorithm. in the case of a 10 bar truss under a single load case, the proposed ga-based weight minimization process provides the most optimum weight in comparison to the proposed se-based method or other recent methods. it has also been observed that the proposed ga-based method provides the lowest possible structural weight for all the trusses considered in the study. an application problem has also been considered to assess the design effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.