Optimal placement of dampers for passive response control

The effectiveness of viscous and viscoelastic dampers for seismic response reduction of structures is quite well known in the earthquake engineering community. This paper deals with the optimal utilization of these dampers in a structure to achieve a desired performance under earthquake-induced ground excitations. Frequency-dependent and -independent viscous dampers and viscoelastic dampers have been considered as the devices of choice. To determine the optimal size and location of these dampers in the structure, a genetic algorithm is used. The desired performance is defined in terms of several different forms of performance functions. The use of the genetic approach is not limited to any particular form of performance function as long as it can be calculated numerically. For illustration, numerical examples for different building structures are presented showing the distribution and size of different dampers required to achieve a desired level of reduction in the response or a performance index. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.