Abstract
This study presents a sequential linear programming approach for the optimal elastic plastic design of truss structures under the ductility factor and the ultimate load factor constraints. Little or no attempt has been made to generally cast the optimal elastic plastic design of skeletal structures. The method is first fomulated by the SLP primal and dual problems for the optimal elastic-plastic design using the holonomic elastic plastic analysis and the limited ductility constraints. Then, a sensitivity analysis based on the shadow cost concept is applied to select the yielding membes and to introduce their plastic deformations. Truss structures are designed to illustrate the applicability of the approach.
