Life‐cycle cost optimization of wind‐excited tall buildings using surrogate models

Abstract

SummaryAs buildings become taller and slender, they become more sensitive to wind‐induced vibrations. Commonly used solutions to mitigate wind‐induced vibrations are structural system modifications and integration of supplemental damping devices. This paper presents a procedure to optimize the structural system and the damping device configuration with the goal of reducing wind‐induced vibrations. The performance of the building is expressed in terms of life‐cycle cost (LCC), allowing to consider not only the initial costs associated with the integration of wind‐induced vibration mitigation system but also the lifetime savings due to vibration suppression. The proposed procedure employs a set of Kriging surrogate models to analyze a large number of different structural properties/damping device characteristics. The combination that minimizes the LCC is taken as the optimal configuration. The procedure is demonstrated on a wind‐sensitive 39‐story building equipped with passive dampers. Results demonstrated that the accuracy of the Kriging surrogate models depends on the number of input variables considered, with an average root mean square error of 2.5% for the floors without dampers and 5% for the floors equipped with damping devices, respectively. It was also demonstrated that optimal stiffness–damping device configuration and LCC depend on the assumed cost of the structural system modifications.