Optimum design of structures

This book presents the integrated approach of analysis and optimal design of structures. This approach, which is more convenient than the so-called nested approach, has the difficulty of generating a large optimization problem. To overcome this problem a methodology of decomposition by multilevel is developed. This technique, which is also suitable for implementation on parallel processing computers, has the advantage of reducing the size of the optimization problem generated. The geometric programming for both equality and inequality constraints is used in the optimization.