Issue 75

P. Grubits et alii, Fracture and Structural Integrity, 75 (2026) 124-156; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.75.10

by the respective design settings. Specifically, the worst solutions of E1-OP1, E1-OP2, and E1-OP3 achieve approximately 37.6% , 50.9% , and 38.8% weight savings, while the best-performing designs reach 48.5% , 55.7% , and 43.7% , respectively—demonstrating the overall robustness of the proposed optimization framework. Regarding maximum vertical displacement, all configurations outperform the initial setup. In E1-OP3, where a displacement constraint is enforced, the final solution remains within the prescribed limit, with only a negligible exceedance—well within acceptable engineering tolerances. These results emphasize the framework’s capability to deliver both material-efficient and regulation-compliant designs, even under suboptimal optimization outcomes. To visually support the comparison, the cross-section distributions of these configurations are illustrated in Fig. 21 . As anticipated, the most critical members—specifically the top chords at midspan and the diagonals near the supports—are assigned the largest cross-sectional areas. This outcome further demonstrates that the applied penalty formulations effectively guide the optimization toward reinforcing structurally sensitive regions, while enabling material savings in less critical members.

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