Optimization of tuned mass dampers to improve the earthquake resistance of high buildings

To prevent high buildings in endangered zones suffering from seismic attack, TMD are applied successfully. In many applications the dampers are placed along the height of the edifice to reduce the damage during the earthquake. The dimensioning of TMD is a multidimensional optimisation problem with many local maxima. To find the absolute best or a very good design, advanced optimisation strategies have to be applied. Bionic optimization proposes different methods to deal with such tasks but requires many repeated studies of the buildings and dampers design. To improve the speed of the analysis, the authors propose a reduced model of the building including the dampers. A series of consecutive generations shows a growing capacity to reduce the impact of an earthquake on the building. The proposals found help to dimension the dampers. A detailed analysis of the building under earthquake loading may yield an efficient design