本篇論文針對桁架結構設計最佳化問題發展一個全新的啟發式設計方法，這個新方法最主要特色在於能在合理的計算時間內完成收斂並取得近似最佳解。啟發式設計方法之所以收斂快速是因為使用到啟發式搜尋技術，首先將原為多變數的桁架結構設計問題轉換成一個單變數最佳化問題，接著對唯一變數進行搜尋即可找到一個合理且不錯的設計解。為了驗證啟發式設計方法的可靠性，數個經典的桁架結構尺寸及拓樸最佳化問題在本論文中拿來測試並與一般最佳化設計分法作比較，測試結果指出啟發式設計方法所產生的設計解與用最佳化設計方法找到的設計解之間重量差異不超過1。

This work proposes a novel heuristic scheme to approximate the optimal design of truss structures. The contribution of the proposed scheme is its capability to obtain a nearly optimal solution of a truss design problem within an acceptable computational time. In the proposed scheme, a heuristic search is a key process to speed up the computations. The idea of the heuristic search is that it transforms the multi-variable truss design problems into one-variable optimization ones. In doing so, the computational time in searching solutions can be reduced to the minimum. Several truss design problems were selected from the literature for performance tests of the heuristic scheme. The analytical results indicate that the solutions obtained by the proposed scheme differ by less than 1 from those obtained by traditional structural optimization methods.