Paper Details

ABSTRACT

In the present paper a research work for optimization of beam column section has been described using a newly developed meta heuristic algorithm which is the harmony search algorithm. In structural design of building the designer comes across to design the column which is subjected to combined axial force and biaxial moment. There is many design software available for such purposes like STAAD.PRO, ETABS, and SAP etc. But this software is not a reliable source for designing the building. A beam column section has been optimized using STAAD design tool. The research on the design results given by STAAD shows that the given steel section does not satisfy the requirement given by the Indian Standard Code 800:2007. Hence the given section cannot be used as a building member while construction. To overcome this a Visual Basic program is developed by the author to give the optimized steel section. The optimization method used for developing the program is Harmony Search Algorithm with adaptive pitch adjustment rate. The program uses the input data entered by user and gives optimized section for given conditions. The results show that the program is reliable and satisfies all Indian code requirements as compared to other software.