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A concrete deep beam is defined as a structural reinforced concrete beam whose behavior is governed by shear deformations. Due to a high depth/length ratio, or concentrated loading near its supports, deep beams do not behave similarly to typical beams, and thus require special design considerations. Until recently, the design of deep beams in the United States was based on empirical data and standard design practices. In Europe, the Eurocode 2 (EC-2) code first addressed the design procedure for deep beams using a strut-and-tie model (STM). At their current state, design standards and codes provide ample freedom to engineers to determine the layout of the STM. However, this lack of regulation and strict guidelines often make the design process for deep beams using STM time-consuming and tedious.
For this project, my goal was to apply topology optimization to minimize the amount of steel reinforced required for a concrete deep beam design. I wrote a MATLAB code designed to explore a range of possible truss layouts for any given loading condition on a deep beam. The code determines the STM layout that requires the least amount of reinforcement. A secondary module to the code allows the user to fix any of the nodes of the STM to account for architectural requirements, openings within the beam etc. Once the user manually fixes the nodes, the code outputs the deviation of efficiency between the most optimal design possible with the user’s input versus the most optimal design possible overall. This comparison will allow engineers to steer the design of the beam towards a final product that is both efficient and practical.
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