Constraint-Based Reasoning for Structural Concrete Design and Detailing

he concrete design problem and has the ability to conveniently represent the entire feasible solution space using inequalities. 1.0 INTRODUCTION Concrete used as an engineering material offers a great deal of flexibility to a potential owner, construction contractor and design engineer. This flexibility carries with it a burden of difficult design standardization and an increased awareness of constructibility issues unique to concrete. The designer is faced with almost unlimited feasible combinations of dimensions and reinforcement configurations for any given element or structure. These numerous solutions are constrained by but not limited to functionality such as minimum and maximum dimensions, span, structural system, and exposure. Constraints are also imposed by the construction process and include spacing of reinforcement, size of reinforcing bars and mesh, and formwork configurations. Designing concrete structures can be viewed in terms of constraints. However,