A general purpose real-world structural design optimization computing platform

Structural optimization has matured from a narrow academic discipline, where researchers focused on optimum design of small idealized structural components and systems, to become the basis in modern design of complex structural systems. Some software applications in recent years have made these tools accessible to professional engineers, decision‐makers and students outside the structural optimization research community. These software applications, mainly focused on aerospace, aeronautical, mechanical and naval structural systems, have incorporated the optimization component as an additional feature of the finite element software package. On the other hand though there is not a holistic optimization approach in terms of final design stage for real‐world civil engineering structures such as buildings, bridges or more complex civil engineering structures. The optimization computing platform presented in this study is a generic real‐world optimum design computing platform for civil structural systems and it is implemented within an innovative computing framework, founded on the current state of the art in topics like metaheuristic optimization, structural analysis and parallel computing. For demonstration purposes the application of the optimization computing platform in five real‐world design projects is presented.