Author(s)

M. Asghar Bhatti

Abstract

Tremendous advances have been made in the development of powerful computer algebra (CA) systems that are capable of performing complex computational tasks in a unified environment involving numerical and symbolic calculations, graphics, and animation. Using one such system, called Mathematica, the paper presents a computational environment as an alternative to the use of spreadsheets and special purpose programs in the structural design practice. The design requirements are entered as equations using essentially the same notation in which such equations appear in books and design manuals. The same set of equations can also be turned into an optimization problem by defining expressions for an objective function and suitable constraint functions. These ideas are illustrated by taking examples of optimum designs of

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