Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is a search technique that in the last decade emerged as a major breakthrough for Artificial Intelligence applications regarding board- and video-games. In 2016, AlphaGo, an MCTS-based software agent, outperformed the human world champion of the board game Go. This game was for long considered almost infeasible for machines, due to its immense search space and the need for a long-term strategy. Since this historical success, MCTS is considered as an effective new approach for many other scientific and technical problems. Interestingly, civil structural engineering, as a discipline, offers many tasks whose solution may benefit from intelligent search and in particular from adopting MCTS as a search tool. In this work, we show how MCTS can be adapted to search for suitable solutions of a structural engineering design problem. The problem consists of choosing the load-bearing elements in a reference reinforced concrete structure, so to achieve a set of specific dynamic characteristics. In the paper, we report the results obtained by applying both a plain and a hybrid version of single-agent MCTS. The hybrid approach consists of an integration of both MCTS and classic Genetic Algorithm (GA), the latter also serving as a term of comparison for the results. The study’s outcomes may open new perspectives for the adoption of MCTS as a design tool for civil engineers.

蒙特卡洛树搜索（MCTS）是一种搜索技术，在过去的十年中成为针对棋盘游戏和视频游戏的人工智能应用程序的一项重大突破。2016年，基于MCTS的软件代理AlphaGo的表现优于棋盘游戏Go的人类世界冠军。长期以来，由于其巨大的搜索空间和长期战略的需要，该游戏在机器上几乎是不可行的。由于取得了历史性的成功，MCTS被认为是解决许多其他科学和技术问题的有效新方法。有趣的是，作为一门学科，土木结构工程提供了许多任务，其解决方案可能会受益于智能搜索，尤其是通过采用MCTS作为搜索工具。在这项工作中，我们展示了如何将MCTS应用于搜索结构工程设计问题的合适解决方案。问题在于在参考钢筋混凝土结构中选择承重元素，以便获得一组特定的动力特性。在本文中，我们报告了通过应用普通版本和混合版本的单代理MCTS所获得的结果。混合方法包括MCTS和经典遗传算法（GA）的集成，后者也用作结果比较的术语。这项研究的结果可能会为采用MCTS作为土木工程师的设计工具开辟新的前景。我们报告了通过应用普通版本和混合版本的单代理MCTS所获得的结果。混合方法包括MCTS和经典遗传算法（GA）的集成，后者也用作结果比较的术语。这项研究的结果可能会为采用MCTS作为土木工程师的设计工具开辟新的前景。我们报告了通过应用普通版本和混合版本的单代理MCTS所获得的结果。混合方法包括MCTS和经典遗传算法（GA）的集成，后者也用作结果比较的术语。这项研究的结果可能会为采用MCTS作为土木工程师的设计工具开辟新的前景。