Whether monetary, environmental, or otherwise, the cost of the structure is always an important aspect when designing reinforced concrete. A structure with a low cost is desirable, but other considerations must be made. First and foremost, the structures should be safe. The two conditions define the structural optimization problem that this paper seeks to solve as finding the structure with the lowest cost, which is also safe. Validation of reinforced concrete in the ultimate limit state is often performed using plasticity and strength-based methods. This paper combines Finite Element Limit Analysis (FELA) with a yield cri-terion that includes material layout variables to create a strength-based structural optimization frame-work for solid reinforced concrete structures. The yield criterion combines the Modified Mohr- Coulomb criterion, where variables scale the compressive strength, with the inclusion of smeared rein-forcement, where variables scale the reinforcement ratios. The framework is presented and shown in examples using free optimization and examples where material layout variables in parts of the structure are coupled and optimized as a group.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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