Study on Optimum Structural Design using Evolutionary L system.

Lsystem (LS) is a technique expressing a formation algorithm creating the various shape patterns by the simple rules. Using LS, the complex branch phenomena of plants could be described by simple rules. This paper has tried the methodology to apply LS to the structural design. This methodology grows up the structure as if plants grow up, and produces the optimum structure that is appropiate for the design purpose. It is difficult to acquire LS rules for the optimum structure because the rules have many degrees of freedom. Therefore, this paper proposes an idea that evolves LS rules using Genetic Algorithms (GA) . The methodology is called as an evolutionary LS (ELS) . Using the methodology, the design problems to decide optimum distribution of material and plate thickness are solved.