OPTIMIZATION OF SELF SUPPORTED TOWERS BY MEANS OF HEURISTIC TECHNIQUES. A REVISION OF THE AVAILABLE LITERATURE ON THE TOPIC

Abstract

Self-supporting steel lattice towers are of vital importance in telecommunications, as they are the support for antennas that transmit signals for both television and cell phones. The use of heuristic techniques has strengthened the field of optimization in different branches of engineering, including civil engineering related to design, which has shown progressive growth in recent years. This article presents a review of the main studies carried out in the last 20 years on the optimization of lattice towers through the use of heuristic techniques, in order to determine the techniques, types of optimization and the most used objective function. From the bibliography consulted, it is concluded that most of the authors apply the Genetic Algorithms technique, which occupies 35,71%. 33,33% of the authors optimize the size and shape of the structures, which corresponds to the highest percentage of application, although size optimization (29%) and the combination of size, shape and topology (29%) are also widely used. Finally, the vast majority of authors (89,29%) optimize the weight of the towers, in this way, if the minimum weight is guaranteed and the geometric and resistance restrictions of the members are met, the minimum cost of construction is achieved.