The volume presents a collaboration between internationally recognized experts on anti-optimization and structural optimization, and summarizes various novel ideas, methodologies and results studied over 20 years. The book vividly demonstrates how the concept of uncertainty should be incorporated in a rigorous manner during the process of designing real-world structures. The necessity of anti-optimization approach is first demonstrated, then the anti-optimization techniques are applied to static, dynamic and buckling problems, thus covering the broadest possible set of applications. Finally, anti-optimization is fully utilized by a combination of structural optimization to produce the optimal design considering the worst-case scenario. This is currently the only book that covers the combination of optimization and anti-optimization. It shows how various optimization techniques are used in the novel anti-optimization technique, and how the structural optimization can be exponentially enhanced by incorporating the concept of worst-case scenario, thereby increasing the safety of the structures designed in various fields of engineering.

Uncertainties play a dominant role in the design and optimization of structures and infrastructures. In optimum design of structural systems due to variations of the material, manufacturing variations, variations of the external loads and modelling uncertainty, the parameters of a structure, a structural system and its environment are not given, fixed coefficients, but random variables with a certain probability distribution. The increasing necessity to solve complex problems in Structural Optimization, Structural Reliability and Probabilistic Mechanics, requires the development of new ideas, innovative methods and numerical tools for providing accurate numerical solutions in affordable computing times. This book presents the latest findings on structural optimization considering uncertainties. It contains selected contributions dealing with the use of probabilistic methods for the optimal design of different types of structures and various considerations of uncertainties. The first part is focused on reliability-based design optimization and the second part on robust design optimization. Comprising twenty-one, self-contained chapters by prominent authors in the field, it forms a complete collection of state-of-the-art theoretical advances and applications in the fields of structural optimization, structural reliability, and probabilistic computational mechanics. It is recommended to researchers, engineers, and students in civil, mechanical, naval and aerospace engineering and to professionals working on complicated costs-effective design problems.

This volume explains the dramatic effect of cross-correlations in forming the structural response of aircraft in turbulent excitation, ships in rough seas, cars on irregular roads, and other dynamic regimes. It brings into sharp focus the dramatic effect of cross correlations often neglected due to the analytical difficulty of their evaluation. Veteran author Professor Isaac Elishakoff illustrates how neglect of cross correlations could result in underestimation of the response by tens or hundreds of percentages the effect of the random vibrations of structures’ main elements, including beams, plates, and shells.

Throughout the past few years, there has been extensive research done on structural design in terms of optimization methods or problem formulation. But, much of this attention has been on the linear elastic structural behavior, under static loading condition. Such a focus has left researchers scratching their heads as it has led to vulnerable structural configurations. What researchers have left out of the equation is the element of seismic loading. It is essential for researchers to take this into account in order to develop earthquake resistant real-world structures. Structural Seismic Design Optimization and Earthquake Engineering: Formulations and Applications focuses on the research around earthquake engineering, in particular, the field of implementation of optimization algorithms in earthquake engineering problems. Topics discussed within this book include, but are not limited to, simulation issues for the accurate prediction of the seismic response of structures, design optimization procedures, soft computing applications, and other important advancements in seismic analysis and design where optimization algorithms can be implemented. Readers will discover that this book provides relevant theoretical frameworks in order to enhance their learning on earthquake engineering as it deals with the latest research findings and their practical implementations, as well as new formulations and solutions.

The volume presents a collaboration between internationally recognized experts on anti-optimization and structural optimization, and summarizes various novel ideas, methodologies and results studied over 20 years. The book vividly demonstrates how the concept of uncertainty should be incorporated in a rigorous manner during the process of designing real-world structures. The necessity of anti-optimization approach is first demonstrated, then the anti-optimization techniques are applied to static, dynamic and buckling problems, thus covering the broadest possible set of applications. Finally, anti-optimization is fully utilized by a combination of structural optimization to produce the optimal design considering the worst-case scenario. This is currently the only book that covers the combination of optimization and anti-optimization. It shows how various optimization techniques are used in the novel anti-optimization technique, and how the structural optimization can be exponentially enhanced by incorporating the concept of worst-case scenario, thereby increasing the safety of the structures designed in various fields of engineering.

This proceedings book covers a wide range of topics related to uncertainty analysis and its application in various fields of engineering and science. It explores uncertainties in numerical simulations for soil liquefaction potential, the toughness properties of construction materials, experimental tests on cyclic liquefaction potential, and the estimation of geotechnical engineering properties for aerogenerator foundation design. Additionally, the book delves into uncertainties in concrete compressive strength, bio-inspired shape optimization using isogeometric analysis, stochastic damping in rotordynamics, and the hygro-thermal properties of raw earth building materials. It also addresses dynamic analysis with uncertainties in structural parameters, reliability-based design optimization of steel frames, and calibration methods for models with dependent parameters. The book further explores mechanical property characterization in 3D printing, stochastic analysis in computational simulations, probability distribution in branching processes, data assimilation in ocean circulation modeling, uncertainty quantification in climate prediction, and applications of uncertainty quantification in decision problems and disaster management. This comprehensive collection provides insights into the challenges and solutions related to uncertainty in various scientific and engineering contexts.

The specialty section Earthquake Engineering is one branch of Frontiers in Built Environment and welcomes critical and in-depth submissions on earthquake ground motions and their effects on buildings and infrastructures. Manuscripts should yield new insights and ultimately contribute to a safer and more reliable design of building structures and infrastructures. The scope includes the characterization of earthquake ground motions (e.g. near-fault, far-fault, short-period, long-period), their underlying properties, their intrinsic relationship with structural responses, and the true behaviors of building structures and infrastructures under risky and uncertain ground motions. More specific topics include recorded ground motions, generated ground motions, response spectra, stochastic modeling of ground motion, critical excitation, geotechnical aspects, soil mechanics, soil liquefaction, soil-structure interactions, pile foundations, earthquake input energy, structural control, passive control, active control, base-isolation, steel structures, reinforced concrete structures, wood structures, building retrofit, structural optimization, uncertainty analysis, robustness analysis, and redundancy analysis. This eBook includes four original research papers, in addition to the Specialty Grand Challenge article, on the critical earthquake response of elastic-plastic structures under near-fault or long-duration ground motions which were published in the specialty section Earthquake Engineering. In the early stage of dynamic nonlinear response analysis of structures around 1960s, a simple hysteretic structural model and a simple sinusoidal earthquake ground motion input were dealt with together with random inputs. The steady-state response was tackled by an equivalent linearization method developed by Caughey, Iwan and others. In fact, the resonance plays a key role in the earthquake-resistant design and it has a strong effect even in case of near-fault ground motions. In order to draw the steady-state response curve and investigate the resonant property, two kinds of repetition have to be introduced. One is a cycle, for one forced input frequency, of the initial guess of the steady-state response amplitude, the construction of the equivalent linear model, the analysis of the steady-state response amplitude using the equivalent linear model and the update of the equivalent linear model based on the computed steady-state response amplitude. The other is the sweeping over a range of forced input frequencies. This process is quite tedious. Four original research papers included in this eBook propose a new approach to overcome this difficulty. Kojima and Takewaki demonstrated that the elastic-plastic response as continuation of free-vibrations under impulse input can be derived in a closed form by a sophisticated energy approach without solving directly the equations of motion as differential equations. While, as pointed out above, the approach based on the equivalent linearization method requires the repetition of application of the linearized equations, the method by Kojima and Takewaki does not need any repetition. The double impulse, triple impulse and multiple impulses enable us to describe directly the critical timing of impulses (resonant frequency) which is not easy for the sinusoidal and other inputs without a repetitive procedure. It is important to note that, while most of the previous methods employ the equivalent linearization of the structural model with the input unchanged, the method treated in this eBook transforms the input into a series of impulses with the structural model unchanged. This characteristic guarantees high accuracy and reliability even in the large plastic deformation range. The approach presented in this eBook is an epoch-making accomplishment to open the door for simpler and deeper understanding of structural reliability of built environments in the elastic-plastic range

Uncertainty influences the individual as well as society; so it is important to enhance our understanding of uncertainty. First of all, do we all agree on a unique definition of uncertainty in the natural and technological worlds? Secondly, how can we model uncertainty? Is it purely a state of mind, the lack of complete knowledge, or is it a phenomenon in its own right? What heuristic and mathematical models are available? What types of questions about uncertainty can be formulated? What questions can be realistically answered? Do scholars in diverse fields agree on these issues? These and other questions are addressed by 20 scholars from mechanical, civil, electrical, material, aerospace and ocean engineering, from applied mathematics, economics, industrial engineering and operations research, control theory, geodesy, systems science, and philosophy.