Optimum design of axially symmetric cylindrical reinforced concrete walls

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between thickness and height of the axially symmetric cylindrical reinforced concrete (RC) walls by the help of a meta-heuristic optimization procedure. The material cost of the wall which includes concrete, reinforcement and formwork, was chosen as objective function of the optimization problem. The wall thickness, compressive strength of concrete and diameter of reinforcement bars were defined as design variables and tank volume, radius and height of the wall, loading condition and unit cost of material were defined as design constants. Numerical analyses of the wall were conducted by using superposition method (SPM) considering ACI 318-Building code requirements for structural concrete. The optimum wall thickness-height relationship was investigated under three main cases related with compressive strength of concrete and density of the stored liquid. According to the results, the proposed method is effective on finding the optimum design with minimum cost.