Evaluation of steel special moment resisting frame structures with different spans and story numbers

Optimal topology design of structures has always been a challenging issue for engineers and designers. Many of the studies on layout optimisation suggested unpractical or impossible designs from construction technology point of view. On the other hand, a good design has to satisfy not only structural but also architectural requirements, which provides cost-effective building with useful areas and spaces. In this article, performance of special steel moment resisting frames were evaluated in terms of the required materials and the architectural requirements using static analysis method. To obtain comparable results, a same plan was defined for models so that all architectural requirements for parking areas to be satisfied. Required materials and structural costs for building models with different layouts were obtained and compared. Results showed that moderate beams were almost the optimal design for mid structures, and when the story numbers increases, larger spans were required to provide optimal design.