Structural Seismic Design Optimization and Earthquake Engineering - Formulations and Applications


Preface

Since the early seventies, optimization has been the subject of intensive research and several different approaches have been advocated for the optimal design of structures in terms of optimization methods or problem formulations. Most of the attention of the engineering community has been directed towards the optimum design of structures with the assumption of linear elastic structural behavior under static loading conditions. However, for a large number of real-life structural design problems, the assumption of linear response may lead to vulnerable structural configurations, while seismic loading has also to be taken into account in order to design earthquake resistant real-world structures. Parts of the book are devoted to the formulation of design optimization frameworks in the field of earthquake engineering.





In recent years, probabilistic-based formulations of the optimization problem have been developed in order to account for the uncertainty and randomness. The development of stochastic analysis methods over the last two decades has stimulated the interest for the probabilistic optimum design of structures. There are two distinguished design formulations that account for the probabilistic system response: Robust Design Optimization (RDO) and Reliability-Based Design Optimization (RBDO). RDO methods

primarily seek to minimize the influence of stochastic variations on the nominal dimensions and values of the material properties of the design. On the other hand, the main goal of RBDO methods is to design for minimum weight, while satisfying the limit on the allowable probability of failure. Parts of the book are devoted to the formulation of optimization problems considering uncertainties under earthquake loading conditions.

The research fields described above define “hot” topics of Earthquake Engineering involving the use of advanced optimization tools. The basic idea of this book is to include all the aforementioned research topics into a volume taking advantage of the connecting link between them, which is optimization. In this direction, the book consists of 15 chapters in total. In the first chapter, the components in life-cycle cost (LCC) evaluation are identified that directly affect the outcomes and propose strategies to improve the reliability of the analysis, while the shortcomings of existing studies on LCC optimization of structures
are identified.

In the second chapter an approach is presented to structural optimization for performance-based design in earthquake engineering where the objective is the minimization of the total cost, including repairing damage produced by future earthquakes, and satisfying minimum target reliabilities in three performance levels. In the next chapter the reliability-based design optimization of structural systems under stochastic excitation involving discrete sizing type of design variables is considered; while it is formulated as the minimization of an objective function subject to multiple reliability constraints.


Download
http://s18.alxa.net/s18/srvs2/02/001...plications.rar