Optimal design of added viscoelastic dampers and supporting braces

This paper presents a simultaneous optimization procedure for both viscoelastic dampers (VEDs) and supporting braces installed in a structure. The effect of supporting braces on the control efficiency of VEDs is also investigated. To apply a general gradient-based optimization algorithm, closed-form expressions for the gradients of objective function and constraints are derived. Also, the constraint on the dynamic behavior of a structure is embedded in the gradient computation procedure to reduce the number of variables in the optimization. From numerical analysis of an example structure, it was found that when sufficient stiffness cannot be provided for the supporting braces, the flexibility of the brace should be taken into account in the design of the VED to achieve the desired performance of the structure. It was also observed that, as a result of the proposed optimization process, the size of the supporting brace should be reduced while the additional VED size (to compensate for the loss of the control effect) was insignificant.