Optimising Viscous Damper Placement in Frame Buildings with Element Exchange Method for Multiple Seismic Hazard Levels

Viscous dampers enhance the seismic performance of buildings by increasing the capacity for energy dissipation, or damping. Many placement optimisation algorithms currently exist, though they often do not align with code-based verification procedures nor consider optimising performance at multiple seismic hazard levels, at serviceability and ultimate limits. This paper proposes new damper placement algorithms and compares them against eight existing methods on seismic performance at different hazard levels, design iterations required and total computation effort. The comparison is conducted by means of numerical case studies. All methods are applied to a ten-storey reinforced concrete (RC) moment resisting frame (MRF) building, initially meeting the design requirements of typical buildings in a moderate seismic zone in New Zealand. The result showed that the proposed methods and two existing methods can generate a solution that dominates solutions of other existing methods in at least one aspect (e.g. the objective at a hazard level or running time).