Design of reinforcement for concrete co-planar shell structures using optimization techniques

The absence of universally accepted solutions for the design of reinforcement in plates and shells in the structural concrete codes, and the constant development of computers combined with powerful numerical methods, reveal the need for a standard procedure to calculate the required reinforcement in thin elements subject to membrane and flexural forces. In the present study, the amount of reinforcement is optimized locally for each finite element of the mesh that models the geometry of the problem. Some numerical examples are given and compared to the results provided by other authors, achieving significant savings in reinforcement.