Topological design of truss structures using simulated annealing

In this paper an extended study of the combinational optimization technique known as simulated annealing (SA) applied to the minimum weight design of plane trusses subject to a multiple loading case is reported. The main tool for this study was a modular program developed in C where the truss structure may be optimized over an N-dimensional space of continuous values for the member cross sectional areas or a discrete set of chosen values. A new heuristic is introduced in the SA's generation mechanism to perform changes in the topology of the structure while the member cross-sectional areas are minimized, enabling the program to remove the redundant members, for generating reduced structures.