DAAAD_Bridges
Domain-aware-AI Augmented Design of Bridge Structures
Abstract
The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry currently adopts Generative Design (GD) approaches to enable computer-assisted design decision-making in early project stages. Existing approaches largely neglect structural engineering aspects such as design verification and construction processes. This holds especially true for bridges (yet they are the essential backbone of civil infrastructure) as there are no mature computational design nor optimization approaches available due to complex non-linear interactions of structural components and a tremendous amount of geometric and material design variables. Given the current situation, this project develops an agnostic toolkit for design of bridge structures and addresses four main goals: (a) overcoming the mentioned GD deficits by deriving an agnostic method using domain- aware artificial intelligence (AI)-related approaches to tackle the combination of GD with structural bridge design and optimization; (b) developing and implementing a toolkit “AI-BridgeGEN” with a generic approach through the case studies of tied-arch-network-bridges and concrete network-arch-bridges, (c) allowing further derivation of engineering domain knowledge through numerical investigations via this software tool, and (d) fostering dissemination of the developed approach into engineering research and practice by providing open source software and the generated data as benchmark data set for the scientific machine learning community. By its conception, this proposal substantially changes the way of research and practice in bridge design and delivers impact in three areas: (i) enriching applications of state-of-the-art AI models and potentially paving the way of developing new AI model classes (combining geometric deep learning with Generative Adversarial Networks), (ii) influencing future design concepts of bridge structures by expected new mechanical, technical and structural insights into the interactions between design variables of bridges, (iii) using the developed methodology for a ground-breaking pilot study in structural engineering, influencing research directions for structural optimization of a wider range of civil infrastructure besides bridges. The outcomes enable a significantly more efficient, economic and sustainable (yet reliable) design of bridges.
People
Collaborators
Luis is originally from Spain, where he completed his bachelor's studies in Electrical engineering, and the Ms.C. on signal theory and communications, both at the University of Seville. During his Ph.D. he started focusing on machine learning methods, more specifically message passing techniques for channel coding, and Bayesian methods for channel equalization. He carried it out between the University of Seville and the University Carlos III in Madrid, also spending some time at the EPFL, Switzerland, and Bell Labs, USA, where he worked on advanced techniques for optical channel coding. When he completed his Ph.D. in 2013, he moved to the Luxembourg Center on Systems Biomedicine, where he switched his interest to neuroscience, neuroimaging, life sciences, etc., and the application of machine learning techniques to these fields. During his 4 and a half years there as a Postdoc, he worked on many different problems as a data scientist, encompassing topics such as microscopy image analysis, neuroimaging, single-cell gene expression analysis, etc. He joined the SDSC in April 2018. As Lead Data Scientist, Luis coordinates projects in various domains. Several projects focus on the application of natural language processing and knowledge graphs to the study of different phenomena in social and political sciences. In the domains of architecture and engineering, Luis is responsible for projects centered on the application of novel generative methods to parametric modeling. Finally, Luis also coordinates different projects in robotics, ranging from collaborative robotic construction to deformable object manipulation.
Konstantinos obtained a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Delft, Netherlands and conducted his doctoral studies in the Chair of Structural Mechanics and Monitoring at ETH Zurich with a focus on the fusion of physics-based and data-driven models for vibration-based monitoring of structural and mechanical systems. Before joining SDSC, he was a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich. His research interests revolve around machine learning, uncertainty quantification, inference of probabilistic models, time series forecasting and Bayesian modeling.
Before joining the SDSC as a Data Scientist in April 2023, Alessandro obtained his master’s degree in Computer Science with a focus on Machine Learning from ETH Zurich. In his master’s thesis, he worked on a joint project by the SDSC and the SLF Davos in which he automated the process of avalanche danger forecasting in the Swiss Alps using state-of-the-art machine learning techniques. In his free time, Alessandro loves alpine sports like ski-touring, climbing, and mountaineering.
Fernando Perez-Cruz received a PhD. in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Madrid. He is Titular Professor in the Computer Science Department at ETH Zurich and Head of Machine Learning Research and AI at Spiden. He has been a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs and a Machine Learning Research Scientist at Amazon. Fernando has been a visiting professor at Princeton University under a Marie Curie Fellowship and an associate professor at University Carlos III in Madrid. He held positions at the Gatsby Unit (London), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Tuebingen), and BioWulf Technologies (New York). Fernando Perez-Cruz has served as Chief Data Scientist at the SDSC from 2018 to 2023, and Deputy Executive Director of the SDSC from 2022 to 2023
PI | Partners:
ETH Zurich, Chair of Concrete Structures and Bridge Design:
- Dr. Ing. Michael A. Kraus
- Prof. Dr. Walter Kaufmann
- Sophia Kuhn (Ph.D. student)
- Vera Balmer
description
Motivation
For bridge design, engineers currently rely on performance-driven parametric models that allow to generate, simulate and evaluate a small number of design instances, and gather their performance feedback. Due to the complexity of dealing with a large set of concurrent objectives, this process heavily depends on prior experience, leading to the investigation of only a narrow spectrum of possible solutions. We need to implement tools that assist the engineer during the early phases of the design, enabling to more easily evaluate bridge candidates, discover unexplored areas previously intangible, and ensure the economic viability and sustainability of the tackled problems.
Proposed Approach / Solution
We aim at implementing methodologies to perform “Inverse evaluation“, providing the users with tools for automatically generating a diverse set of solutions given some requested performance measures. This will be facilitated through the implementation of a general toolbox that will allow to tackle different use cases, as well as varied data representations. The backbone of the toolbox will be a ML model, based on generative models such as autoencoders, that will allow learning a forward and inverse model from the available design instances. It will implement visualization tools to enable a further exploration of the design space, and more thorough understanding of the design problem.
Impact
The current project, and the methods envisioned on it, may substantially change the way of research and practice in bridge design from a currently passive use of parametric computer-aided design software into using an active, computationally intelligent partner (“co-pilot”). In the bridge engineering domain, insights on the mechanical and technical aspect could be also learnt through the exploration of the interrelation of design objectives and parametric parameters. Beyond, similar approaches for generative design could be extended to other civil infrastructures and related fields, where the design diversity might be also restricted by existing biases and/or limitations.
Presentation
Gallery
Annexe
Publications
- Balmer, V., Kuhn, S. V., Bischof, R., Salamanca, L., Kaufmann, W., Perez-Cruz, F., & Kraus, M. A. (2024). Design space exploration and explanation via conditional variational autoencoders in meta-model-based conceptual design of pedestrian bridges. Automation in Construction, 163, 105411.
- Kraus, M. A., Kuhn, S. V., Hodel, A., Bischof, R., Maissen, A., Salamanca Mino, L., & Pérez‐Cruz, F. (2024). Parametrische Modellierung und generatives tiefes Lernen für den Brückenentwurf. Bautechnik, 101(3), 174-180.
Additional resources
Bibliography
- W. Kaufmann and B. Meier, “Conceptual bridge design beyond signature structures,” in IABSE Conference, Geneva 2015: Structural Engineering: Providing Solutions to Global Challenges - Report, 2015, pp. 510–517, doi: 10.2749/222137815818357520.
- S. Abrishami, J. S. Goulding, F. P. Rahimian, and A. Ganah, “Integration of BIM and generative design to exploit AEC conceptual design innovation,” J. Inf. Technol. Constr., vol. 19, pp. 350–359, 2014.
- G. P. Monizza, C. Bendetti, and D. T. Matt, “Parametric and Generative Design techniques in mass-production environments as effective enablers of Industry 4.0 approaches in the Building Industry,” Autom. Constr., vol. 92, pp. 270–285, 2018.
- D. Holzer, R. Hough, and M. Burry, “Parametric Design and Structural Optimisation for Early Design Exploration,” Int. J. Archit. Comput., vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 625–643, 2007, doi: 10.1260/147807707783600780.
- M. Turrin, P. Von Buelow, and R. Stouffs, “Design explorations of performance driven geometry in architectural design using parametric modeling and genetic algorithms,” Adv. Eng. Informatics, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 656–675, 2011, doi: 10.1016/j.aei.2011.07.009.
- L. Yang, D. Zhang, and G. E. M. Karniadakis, “Physics-informed generative adversarial networks for stochastic differential equations,” SIAM J. Sci. Comput., vol. 42, no. 1, pp. A292–A317, 2020, doi: 10.1137/18M1225409.
Publications
Related Pages
- Information at the Design++ consortia webpage: https://designplusplus.ethz.ch/research/domain-aware-ai-augmented-design-of-bridge-structures--daaadbrid.html
- AIXD toolbox: https://aixd.ethz.ch/index.html
- Articles on St. Gallen pedestrian bridge: Erklärbare Künstliche Intelligenz innerhalb des Generativen Designs von Fußgängerbrücken
- Further description on St. Gallen pedestrian bridge: Prof. Dr. Michael A. Kraus, M.Sc.(hons)
- Article Mit Künstlicher Intelligenz zur optimalen Brücke: Basler & Hofmann engagiert sich für Forschung der ETH Zürich
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