Case Study: Princeton University achieves enhanced seismic resilience of concrete shell designs with Altair HyperWorks

Structural Design of Concrete Shells in Seismic Areas Using HyperWorks

Princeton University’s Form-Finding Lab, led by Sigrid Adriaenssens, set out to design thin, expressive shell structures that can be safely used in seismic regions. To analyze and optimize how shell geometry and thickness affect earthquake performance, the team worked with Altair and used the HyperWorks suite (including HyperMesh and the OptiStruct solver) to run large numbers of seismic simulations and form-finding studies.

Using Altair’s HyperWorks tools, Princeton imported geometries into HyperMesh, ran earthquake scenarios with OptiStruct, and applied built‑in optimization to refine thickness distributions and overall shape. The work showed curvature has a major effect—increasing stiffness and raising fundamental frequencies so modes are less likely to be excited by earthquakes—and sizing optimization reduced stress concentrations. Altair’s computational efficiency and optimization support enabled many simultaneous simulations, yielding measurable improvements in vibrational properties, higher natural frequencies, and lower stress concentrations for safer shell designs.

Princeton University