Enhancing structural robustness by complexity maximisation

Structural robustness is considered a fundamental prerequisite in the design of structures. In particular, attention has to be paid to events that are unforecastable and with no known magnitude. Referring to an idea by Donald Rumsfeld, these are unknown unknowns. Among all the possible strategies for ensuring robustness, alternating the load paths on the structures may represent a feasible design solution. Structural complexity is a novel metrics for measuring the amount of interaction between hypothetical load paths on a structure. Maximum complexity corresponds to maximum interaction. In the paper, the links between structural complexity and robustness are investigated.