MULTI-CYCLE DESIGN CHANGES THE ROLE OF THE ENGINEER

AMECO-17 is a multi-cycle design system. As shown in the figure below, the entire analysis/design process is computerized, whereby structural Modeling, loading generation, structural analysis and member size selection are integrated into a continuous iterative operation. The cycling process is repeated until the minimum cost structure is produced or until the cycling is interrupted by the engineer.

The role of the design engineer is thus changing to one of decision-maker. He first defines the design criteria and the functional requirements, lets AMECO carry out the actual design process and then reviews the resulting design for soundness and economy.

Through the life of the project, the structural data are kept up-to-date in the AMECO database. Therefore the latest member sizes, quantities, etc. are available for instant display. Whenever project revisions necessitate re-design or the structure in whole or in part, the latest structural data can be retrieved from the database and used as the datum for the next design cycle. This substantially saves time and minimizes the possibility of introducing design errors.