INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTS OF NUMBER AND HEIGHT OF THE FLOORS ON THE WEIGHT OF THE STRUCTURES WITH MOMENT-RESISTING STEEL FRAMES USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL

Materials such as steel, that are commonly used in high volumes in the construction industry have a considerable role in the total cost of projects. On the other hand, financial resources are one of the main factors in the construction and will affect the design process. By predicting the weight of structures before starting the design process with a reasonable way based on the characteristics of the structures, a designer is able to estimate the approximate required steel materials and strives to optimize its value. In this study, the artificial neural network (ANN) method is used to predict the amount of steel material used in the steel structures with a moment-resisting system. The effects of four basic parameters including span length, story height, shape
of column sections, and number of floors are investigated. A variety of steel structure models with a moment-resisting system are designed based on changes in the aforementioned parameters. These models are delivered to the artificial neural network and the network is trained and verified by means of controlling errors. Database includes more than 1100 structural models. A variety of samples including models with span length vary from 3 to 6 meters, and the number of floors varying from 3 to 14 stories and also story height varying from 3 to 4 meters have been studied. In all models, beam section is selected from IPE family, and two types of highly used cross-section, including H-shape and Box-shape sections, are used in the design process of the column elements.
Results show that, the structural weight can be estimated with appropriate accuracy by the suggested ANN method depending on structural principal parameters; in this way the effect of building height on the weight of structures is explained. Using cross-section of BOX-shape instead of H-shape in the structures with a moment-resisting system leads to about a 10% decrease in the consumption of steel. Increasing the ratio of span length to story height (L/H) from 1 to 1.5 leads to 5% increase in the weight of the structure and, thus, in the consumption of steel material. Increasing this ratio from 1 to 2 leads to 20% increase in the weight of the structure and, thus, in the consumption of steel material.