ABSTRACT
The effectiveness of passive energy dissipation systems to improve seismic performance of structural systems is now well established through extensive analytical and experimental investigations. The focus of this paper is on the optimal design of friction dampers for the minimization of a performance function of a structural system. The design parameters that control the effectiveness of the devices are the damper locations in the building, slip loads of different dampers, and the stiffness of the braces in which the dampers are installed. Since the structural systems with friction dampers behave in a highly nonlinear manner, a genetic algorithm is used to calculate the global optimal values for the design parameters of the devices. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimal design procedure for different forms of performance functions.
