BUILDING DESIGN USING FEEDFORWARD NON-SERIAL DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING

Dynamic programming is proving to be an important optimization technique used in building design. There are many design problems which prima facie do not fit the rigorous serial structure of dynamic programming. This paper describes a procedure for the solution of that class of nonserial dynamic programs which contains feedforward loops which do not intersect. The procedure condenses the various independent paths between stages by absorbing them to produce an equivalent serial structure. The method is demonstrated by solving a problem which can readily be solved by serial dynamic programming upon suitable reformulation. It is then used to design the floor-ceiling sandwich of a multi-storey building, a problem formulated with nested feedforward loops.