Optimal design of Base Isolation System considering uncertain bounded system parameters

Abstract

The optimum design of base isolation system considering model parameter uncertainty is usually performed by using the unconditional response of structure obtained by the total probability theory, as the performance index. Though, the probabilistic approach is powerful, it cannot be applied when the maximum possible ranges of variations are known and can be only modelled as uncertain but bounded type. In such cases, the interval analysis method is a viable alternative. The present study focuses on the bounded optimization of base isolation system to mitigate the seismic vibration effect of structures characterized by bounded type system parameters. With this intention in view, the conditional stochastic response quantities are obtained in random vibration framework using the state space formulation. Subsequently, with the aid of matrix perturbation theory using first order Taylor series expansion of dynamic response function and its interval extension, the vibration control problem is transformed to appropriate deterministic optimization problems correspond to a lower bound and upper bound optimum solutions. A lead rubber bearing isolating a multi-storeyed building frame is considered for numerical study to elucidate the proposed bounded optimization procedure and the optimum performance of the isolation system.