International Journal of Optimization in Civil Engineering
Volume:10 Issue: 1, Winter 2020

Active tuned mass damper (ATMD) systems have attracted the considerable attention of researchers for protecting buildings subjected to earthquake loading. This paper presentes the development of an optimal sliding mode control (OSMC) system for a building equipped with ATMD. In the OSMC technique, a linear sliding surface is used with the slope of this surface designed such that a given (or desired) cost function is minimized. The design is obtained by transforming the system into the regular form. In the regular form, the system is divided into two subsystems inclding: a control term explicitly appears, and other control terms do not appear. In order to demonstrate the capability of the OSMC system, an 11–story realistic building with a TMD installed on the top story of the structure is considered. For achieving this purpose, four well–known earthquake records are selected to evaluate the performance of the OSMC system. Results show that the OSMC technique performs better than other control techniques in the reduction of seismic responses of the structure.

This paper aims to obtain the optimal distance between the adjacent structures using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm considering structure-soil-structure systems; The optimization algorithm has been prepared in MATLAB software and connected into OpenSees software (where the structure-soil-structure system has been analyzed by the direct approach). To this end, a series of adjacent structures with various slenderness have been modeled on the three soil types according to Iranian seismic code (Standard No. 2800) using the direct method. Then they have been analyzed under six earthquake excitations with different risk levels (low, moderate, and high).The results are compared with the proposed values of separation gap between adjacent structures in the Iranian seismic code (Standard No. 2800). Results show that since structures with the same height constructed on a stiff soil will move in the same phase, there is no need to put distance between them. Although, the structures with the height more than 6-story frames where are located on a soft soil are needed to be separated. Additionally, the results show more separation gap between two adjacent structures when the risk level of earthquake is high. In general, the values which are presented in Standard No. 2800 are not suitable for low /moderate-rise structures specially when they are subjected to a high-risk level earthquake and are located on a soft soil and this separation gap should be increased about 10 to 90 percentage depend on the conditions but these values are appropriate for the adjacent structures with same height where are subjected to a low-risk level earthquakes built on soft soil.

The minimum crossing number problem is among the oldest and most fundamental problems arising in the area of automatic graph drawing. In this paper, eight population-based meta-heuristic algorithms are utilized to tackle the minimum crossing number problem for two special types of graphs, namely complete graphs and complete bipartite graphs. A 2-page book drawing representation is employed for embedding graphs in the plane. The algorithms consist of Artificial Bee Colony algorithm, Big Bang-Big Crunch algorithm, Teaching-Learning-Based Optimization algorithm, Cuckoo Search algorithm, Charged System Search algorithm, Tug of War Optimization algorithm, Water Evaporation Optimization algorithm, and Vibrating Particles System algorithm. The performance of the utilized algorithms is investigated through various examples including six complete graphs and eight complete bipartite graphs. Convergence histories of the algorithms are provided to better understanding of their performance. In addition, optimum results at different stages of the optimization process are extracted to enable to compare the meta-heuristics algorithms.

Dampers can reduce structural response under dynamic loads. Since dampers are costly, the design of structures equipped with dampers should make their application economically justifiable. Among the effective cost reduction factors is optimal damper placement. Hence, this study intended to find the optimal viscous damper placement using efficient optimization methods. Taking into account the nonlinear behavior of structure, this optimal distribution can be determined through meeting story-wise damping requirements such that the structure provides the minimum dynamic response and becomes economically justified. To compare the effect of different damper placement layouts on structural response and determine the objective function of optimization, the ratio of peak structural displacement to yield displacement was used as the damage index and objective function of optimization. Colliding Bodies' Optimization (CBO) algorithm was used for optimal damper placement. In this study, the 3- and 4-story concrete frames with different damper placement conditions were studied. Results confirmed the efficiency of the proposed method and algorithm in optimal viscous damper placement in each story. It was also discovered that the application of dampers on higher stories partially uniforms height-wise damage distribution and works towards the design goals.

Civil infrastructures such as bridges and buildings are prone to damage as a result of natural disasters. To understand damages induced by these events, the structure needs to be monitored. The field of engineering focusing on the process of evaluating the location and the intensity of the damage to the structure is called Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). Early damage prognosis in structures is the fundamental part of SHM. In fact, the main purpose of SHM is obtaining information about the existence, location, and the extent of damage in the structure. Since numerous structural damage detection problems can be solved as an inverse problem based on the proposed objective functions by using optimization algorithm, in this paper, related studies are investigated which discussing objective functions based on Modal Strain Energy (MSE) and flexibility methods including Modal Flexibility (MF), and Generalized Flexibility Matrix (GFM). To illustrate the extent of effectiveness of these objective functions based on the above-mentioned modal parameters, an efficiency index called Impact Factor (IF) is defined. Finally, the best objective function is introduced for each numerical case study based on IF by means of evaluating the obtained result.

In structural design, either the experience of designer is used or a uniform grouping is usually utilized to group the elements. This type of grouping affects the fundamental cost of the buildings, including the cost of concrete, steel and formwork, as well as secondary costs such as laboratory, checking, fabrication and etc. However, the secondary costs are not usually considered in the cost function. Strategies can also be used to automate the grouping of members in structural design. In this strategy beams and columns are automatically grouped into a limited number of groups to achieve the lowest cost. In this study, enhanced colliding bodies optimization algorithm is used to automatically group the beams and columns of the reinforced concrete structures and also to optimize their cost. The proposed procedure applied to three reinforced concrete frames with four, eight and twelve stories and the influence of automatic grouping of the members in optimal cost is investigated. Using this method, the beams and columns are automatically grouped and the results show that the optimal cost obtained from the automatic grouping is less than the manual grouping of the members.

In this paper, a design method is proposed for base isolation system under blast loading that this method is based on transforming design problem into an optimization problem. Genetic algorithm has been employed to solve the optimization problem whereas base isolation system properties have been considered as design variables and a linear combination of base drift and inter-story drift has been defined as objective function. A sensitivity analysis has been also conducted to investigate the effect of base isolation system properties on the blast performance of isolated structure. For numerical simulation, base isolation system is designed using the proposed method for controlling the response of an eight-story nonlinear shear-type building frame under blast loading. It has been found from the results that base isolation system is an effective control system under blast loading that its performance is dependent on the base isolation system characteristics especially the base mass. The optimization results also show that base isolation system designed using the proposed method is a well-designed control system for mitigating the blast response of structure and the proposed design method can be considered as an effective design approach under blast loading.

This research focuses on the effects of stiffeners and architectural opening on the steel shear wall topology optimization. To this aim, four relevant issues have been considered. The first issue is the optimality Pattern of the shear wall without stiffeners. The second is the Optimality Pattern of the shear wall with stiffeners in two directions. The third is the investigation on the topology optimization of the shear walls with fixed opening and the fourth is the multi-material topology optimization of the above issues. In the optimize process, the level set method based on the shape sensitivity and the finite element analysis for two-dimensional linear elastic problems has been used. The level set function implicitly indicated the boundaries of the design domain. Several numerical examples are used to demonstrate the optimal paths in the steel shear walls. The results show that optimal values have been changed by replacing stiffeners and creating openings in the wall, but the optimal topologies almost have a shape like a concentric bracing. Also, in the conventional shear walls (one material) the horizontal stiffeners have a significant effect on their performance.

This paper presents a design process using a course grained parallel genetic algorithm to optimize three-dimensional steel moment frames by considering the axial force and biaxial bending moments interaction in plastic hinge formation. The objective function is to minimize the total weight of the structure subjected to the reliability constraint of the structural system. System reliability analysis is performed through the proposed Modified Latin Hypercube Simulation (M-LHS) Method. For optimization, a 3DSMF-RBO program is written in CSHARP programming language. The reliability analysis results show a large decrease in the number of simulation samples and subsequently a decrease in the execution time of optimization computation. The optimization results indicate that by considering interaction of the axial force and biaxial bending moments in plastic hinge formation rather than the only bending moment, to some extent increases the total weight of the designed structure.

Imperialist Competitive Algorithm, ICA is a meta-heuristic which simulates collapse of weak empires by more powerful ones that take possession of their colonies. In order to enhance performance, ICA is hybridized with proper features of Teaching-Learning-Based Optimization, TLBO. In addition, ICA walks are modified with an extra term to intensify looking for the global best solution. The number of control parameters and consequent tuning effort has been reduced in the proposed Imperialist Competitive Learner-Based Optimization, ICLBO with respect to ICA and several other methods. Efficiency and effectiveness of ICLBO is further evaluated treating a number of test functions in addition to continuous and discrete engineering problems. It is discussed and traced that balancing between exploration and exploitation is enhanced due to the proposed hybridization. Numerical results exhibit superior performance of ICLBO vs. ICA and a variety of other well-known meta-heuristics.