Introduction Post-installed and cast-in-place anchors play a critical role in transferring forces from structural and non-structural components into concrete. Despite their widespread use in industrial facilities, equipment foundations, steel structures, pipe racks, machinery supports, and seismic anchorage systems, anchor design remains one of the most misunderstood and error-prone aspects of structural engineering. Traditional anchor design approaches often rely on simplifi

Adisorn Owatsiriwong Engineering Challenges in Modern Steel Girder Design Designing steel runway beams, crane girders, transfer girders, and long-span steel beams is often an iterative process involving repeated structural analysis, code checks, and section revisions. Engineers must evaluate numerous load combinations, serviceability requirements, and stability failure modes while maintaining economical fabrication costs. Traditional workflows typically require multiple softw

Adisorn Owatsiriwong ALPS CONSULTANTS Introduction Reinforced concrete corbels are among the most challenging structural elements to design correctly. Although relatively small in size, corbels are subjected to highly concentrated loads and complex stress distributions that cannot be accurately represented using conventional beam theory. In precast concrete construction, industrial facilities, bridge structures, transfer systems, and heavy equipment supports, corbels play a c

Adisorn Owatsiriwong At ALPS Consultants, we continue to develop practical engineering tools that help engineers perform rigorous calculations efficiently while maintaining a clear understanding of structural behavior. We are pleased to introduce LEDGE-STM™, a new design tool developed as part of the ALPS ACI 318-25 Concrete Calculation Tools suite. LEDGE-STM™ is designed specifically for the analysis and design of: Reinforced concrete beam ledges Bearing ledges Precast beari

Adisorn Owatsiriwong ALPS CONSULTANTS Introduction Underground reinforced concrete tanks are among the most common structures encountered in industrial, infrastructure, water treatment, wastewater treatment, fuel storage, and utility projects. Despite their apparent simplicity, their structural behavior can be surprisingly complex. A typical underground tank consists of: - Base slab - Side walls - Top slab - Internal partitions - Pile-supported foundation system - Soil and gr

Introduction Our engineering philosophy is to conduct structural analysis and design verifications using a transparent, knowledge-based process. FRAME2D-OP is a MATLAB code created by ALPS Consultants to combine classical plane frame finite element analysis with modern optimization techniques. The objective is simple: automate repetitive structural design iterations while maintaining engineering transparency and control. Unlike commercial software that focuses primarily on an

Adisorn Owatsiriwong ALPS Consultants Introduction SLOPE-OP™ is an optimization-based slope stability analysis platform developed by ALPS Consultants. It combines classical limit equilibrium methods with modern metaheuristic optimization techniques to automatically identify critical slip surfaces. The Philosophy Behind SLOPE-OP™ The objective is to locate the slip surface that produces the minimum Factor of Safety (FS) (Coduto 1999; Duncan 2014). Instead of relying on manual

Transforming Pile Foundation Design Through Engineering Intelligence Modern construction projects demand more than conventional pile foundation design. Increasing structural complexity, tighter schedules, seismic requirements, and cost pressures require engineers to evaluate thousands of design possibilities efficiently while maintaining compliance with design standards. To address these challenges, ALPS Consultants has developed PILE-OP™, an advanced pile foundation optimiza

Keywords: Sheet-pile wall · Retaining wall · Metaheuristic optimization · Cost minimization · Reliability-based design · Multiobjective...

1. Inspiration: Nature’s Hierarchy and Intelligence Greywolf's Hunting Mechanism (source: S. Mirjalili) The Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) ,...

Adisorn O. | ALPS Consultants 📌 The Problem with Traditional Methods Anchored sheet pile (SP) walls are typically designed using...

Retaining walls remain a core element in geotechnical engineering, but their design has often relied on manual iterations, conservative...

Background Proposed by Rashedi et al. in 2009 ( “GSA: A Gravitational Search Algorithm” ). Belongs to the family of physics-inspired...

Cite as: Adisorn Owatsiriwong (2025). Counter-Ant System (CAS): A Simple Way to Learn ACO ( https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/file...

In a multivariable design problem, the structure of the single variable can be maintained. The only modification is to insert an...

Introduction The original Ant System (AS) was proposed by Marco Dorigo in 1990. AS has shown its efficiency and simplified concept in...

Retaining walls are fundamental in geotechnical and structural engineering, yet their design often involves conservative assumptions that...

Metaheuristic algorithms often look alike at first glance. They all work with a “population” of solutions, evolve iteratively, and are...

JAYA algorithm was invented by RV Rao (2016) for solving continuous problems. In this blog we try to apply JAYA to knapsack problem which...

In this post, I introduce a new way of thinking about Swarm Intelligence (SI) algorithms through the analogy of investors and retailers...