Optimum design of steel frame structures considering construction cost and seismic damage

Abstract

Minimizing construction cost and reducing seismic damage are two conflicting objectives in the design of any new structure. In the present work, we try to develop a framework in order to solve the optimum performance-based design problem considering the construction cost and the seismic damage of steel moment-frame structures. The Park-Ang damage index is selected as the seismic damage measure because it is one of the most realistic measures of structural damage. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is employed as the optimization algorithm to search the Pareto optimal solutions. To improve the time efficiency of the proposed framework, three simplifying strategies are adopted: first, simplified nonlinear modeling investigating minimum level of structural modeling sophistication; second, fitness approximation decreasing the number of fitness function evaluations; third, wavelet decomposition of earthquake record decreasing the number of acceleration points involved in time-history loading. The constraints of the optimization problem are considered in accordance with Federal Emergency Management Agency\'s (FEMA) recommended seismic design specifications. The results from numerical application of the proposed framework demonstrate the efficiency of the framework in solving the present multi-objective optimization problem.