• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Engineering Designer Magazine

Engineering Designer

  • Home
  • Technology
  • Education
  • Sustainability
  • Materials
  • Medical
  • Construction
  • Advertise
  • iED
You are here: Home / Construction / New method developed for optimising structural design

New method developed for optimising structural design

March 21, 2023 by Geordie Torr

A study carried out by researchers at the Universitat Politècnica de València’s Institute of Science and Technology of Concrete (ICITECH) and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden promises to revolutionise the structural design of wind turbines, offering solutions that are up to 15 per cent more sustainable than traditional designs.

The study presents an innovative and efficient method for optimising the design of wind turbine foundations, thus improving energy efficiency in their construction. According to the researchers, the optimisation method has potential for use in other civil structures.

Advertisement

‘Our method makes it possible to design structures more sustainably and facilitate their construction through software that can analyse different conditions and thus optimise the final product,’ explained Víctor Yepes, a researcher at ICITECH. ‘It uses metamodels, such as Kriging, to improve efficiency and reduce the computational cost of the design-optimisation process.’

The research team applied the method to a real example of wind turbine foundations in Sweden. ‘We found that with our approach, it is possible to obtain better designs by analysing only 20 instead of 1,000 different designs. We also found that these designs are more sustainable than conventional designs,’ said Yepes.

Advertisement

The advantages of the new method also include a significant reduction in costs – both financial and computational – and time when designing wind turbine foundations.

Although this study focused on the design of wind turbine foundations, the proposed method can be applied to other structures used in civil engineering or building construction. Furthermore, the Kriging meta-modelling technique is widely used in industry and can be applied to a variety of structural-design projects.

Advertisement

‘Our work can be useful for optimising other civil engineering structures, such as bridges or buildings,’ Yepes said. ‘In addition, the proposed method could be applied in other fields, such as optimising manufacturing processes or developing new materials. In short, it is a novel technique with great potential for tackling and solving a wide variety of engineering-design problems.

The research has been published in Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization.

Filed Under: Construction, Sustainability

Primary Sidebar

SUBSCRIBE And get a FREE Magazine

Want a FREE magazine each and every month jam-packed with the latest engineering and design news, views and features?

ED Update Magazine

Simply let us know where to send it by entering your name and email below. Immediate access.

Trending

New research could unlock the potential of bladeless wind turbines

Fog harp gets an upgrade

Rethinking design creativity through generative AI

Rice University students win global design contest with cutting-edge haptic wristband

A new metal design for solid-state batteries

Engineers explore the use of robots in chemistry labs

New design brings zero-emission aviation a step closer

Researchers develop ultrasonic wireless battery charging technology

New algorithm promises improved joint designs

Academic develops digital tool with the potential to transform traditional product testing

Footer

About Engineering Designer

Engineering Designer is the quarterly journal of the Insitution of Engineering Designers.

It is produced by the IED for our Members and for those who have an interest in engineering and product design, as well as CAD users.

Click here to learn more about the IED.

Other Pages

  • Contact us
  • About us
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms
  • Institution of Engineering Designers

Search

Tags

ied

Copyright © 2025 · Site by Syon Media