A Displacement-Based Optimal Design Method of RC Frames Subjected to Minor Earthquakes

A displacement-based optimization design method of RC structure was proposed by combining direct displacement-based design method with nonlinear programming technique. To avert the influence of target displacement, the stationary constraint displacement was presented, and the target displacement can be updated during the optimal design process. Principle of virtual work and Gaussian integral method was employed to simplify the explicit relationship between horizontal displacement and the section dimension. Comparison analysis of the local optimal results corresponding to different displacement shapes was conducted to achieve global optimal design. The numerical tests presented demonstrate the computational advantages of the discussed methods and suggesting that the proposed method is a reliably and efficiently tool for displacement-based optimal design.