Integrated structure-passive control design of linear structures under seismic excitations

For purpose of enhancing the seismic performance of civil structures, external passive energy dissipation systems have been extensively used. Usually, the energy dissipation system is provided once the structure has been designed. Obviously, a sequential procedure cannot lead to the best overall design. In this paper, a simultaneous integrated design of the structure and passive control system is formulated as a two-objective optimization problem. As in almost all optimization problems with conflicting objective functions, in this study, different optimal solutions (efficient designs) that meet required restrictions are obtained. Since, the stochastic structural response is obtained in the frequency domain from the power spectral density function of the excitation, the proposed approach is very efficient, robust and requires considerably less computational effort than time history analysis. The methodology is demonstrated through a numerical example on a shear-type framed building.