MINIMUM WEIGHT DESIGN OF STRUCTURES.

Abstract

An approach originally used to reveal the highly singular nature of the problem of minimum weight design has been developed, in various ways, into self contained powerful methods which proved capable of solving much more complicated problems than had been attacked prior to 1964. The essence of the method lies in the possibility of expressing the weight to be minimized as a functional, over the whole structure, of the relevant generalized stresses. The stresses which minimize it are called 'minimal' and are found by some variational process, either classical or novel. The method has been named 'statical' because it uses only statical considerations, in contrast to that of constant energy dissipation in which kinematical considerations are also required. The statical method has by now been adapted and applied to the rigorous solution and the exhaustive investigation of minimum volume design problems in beam structures, plates and shells. Its contributions to the advancement in this field are listed. All problems mentioned are completely solved, even if they have not yet been submitted for publication or written up in the form of papers. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1970
Accession Number
AD0701924

Entities

People

  • George J. Megarefs

Organizations

  • Illinois Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Contrast
  • Dissipation
  • Mental Processes
  • Perception

Readers

  • Operations Research
  • Theoretical Analysis.