Experiences with Minimum Weight Design of Structures Using Optimality Criteria Methods

This paper presents a summary of methods based on optimality criteria to design structures with stress, displacement, buckling and dynamic stiffness constraints. The optimality criteria and the necessary recurrence relations are derived for each of these design constraints. The methods based on optimality criterion can be used to design structures with multiple loading conditions and multiple constraints. Illustrative examples are given to show the application of methods to design a minimum weight structure with different types of constraints.