On the effect of foundation and soil conditions on the optimum design of steel space frames

Minimum cost design of steel framed buildings is of paramount importance in structural engineering. On the other hand, suitable modeling of foundation and soil condition may have substantial effect on the structural response values. In this paper, the effect of foundation and soil condition on the optimal design of such structures is investigated by solving a design example. In this four-storey space building frame example, the optimum design is sought considering four different foundation and soil conditions. The analysis and design optimization results show that optimum design may be quite affected with the base conditions accounted for.

Keywords:

Soil-structure interaction , optimal structural design , steel moment frame.