Automation of the fully stressed design process using COSMOS/M on a personal computer

The purpose of this thesis is to present a means of achieving a "Fully Stressed Design" (FSD) for structures consisting of various finite element types using an automated procedure on a personal computer. This was done through the development of a QuickBASIC program (FSDPC) whose purpose is to interface with the finite element routine COSMOS/M to obtain stress resultants, compare these resultants to defined stress limits, and to furnish COSMOS/M with revised properties until a fully stressed design is obtained.;A brief discussion of COSMOS/M, the element types used and the method by which the fully stressed design is achieved is provided using examples of each element types supported.;The results of FSDPC compare favorably to existing methods for the determination of the fully stressed design. FSDPC provides the additional flexibility of automating the process on a personal computer to obtain a solution as the first step in the optimization process.