A Genetic Algorithm that follows natural selection procedure and Darwin's survival of fittest principle is implemented to find the optimal location of piezoelectric actuators. Active damping introduced by the distributed actuators is considered as the governing criteria to decide the actuator locations. A finite element procedure involving piezoelectric coupling is developed with 2 node Timoshenko beam element to idealise the smart truss structures. Further, the Genetic Algorithm is coded in MATLAB as M-Files to enable the control analysis to use other in-built functions. A 20 member smart truss with d(31) based extension-bending piezoelectric actuators is modelled and four optimal actuator locations are found using the developed procedures
