Stiffness Design Method of Steel Structures using Resizing Techniques

The stiffness design method is presented as a drift control model of steel structures and applied to design of space trusses subjected to stress and displacement constraints. The stiffness design method is developed by integrating the resizing techniques for an effective drift control algorithm with the strength design process according to the commonly used design specifications such as allowable stress design. In the resizing technique the amount of material to be modified depends on the member displacement participation factors and is determined by an optimization technique. Using the stiffness design method, a structural design model for steel structures is proposed and applied to two verifying examples. As demonstrated in the examples, the displacement of the structures can be effectively controlled without expensive computational cost.