TR049: Logic-Based Conceptual Structural Design of Steel Office Buildings

This research effort addresses automation of conceptual design of structures and development of knowledge-based computer tools that assist an engineer in the preliminary phase of structural design. The effort is aimed at using symbolic logic to develop a knowledge-based conceptual structural design application, while employing and extending a formal methodology for developing such systems. The methodology and its application to the domain of structural design of steel office buildings is presented in the dissertation. Issues in the use of symbolic logic for building design systems are discussed and some observations based on our experience are offered.

A computer system named Galileo, capable of (i) generating floor framing plans for transfer of gravity loads and (ii) designing perimeter moment resisting frames for transfer of lateral loads, has been developed as part of this investigation. Given the architectural plan of a building, Galileo can generate geometric configurations for locating structural elements and can design individual members while satisfying structural and exogenous constraints. Costs of different solutions can also be estimated. Epikit-a tool that uses a first-order predicate calculus based language, KIF, for representing knowledge-has been employed for developing the system.

Knowledge and reasoning behind Galileo are elucidated in the dissertation and implementation details are discussed. Representative examples are used to illustrate the working of the system.