Fully stressed design of passive controllers in framed structures for seismic loadings

This paper addresses the optimal design problem of added damping in framed structures. Interstory performance indices for linear and nonlinear structures are chosen and restricted to allowable values under the excitation of an ensemble of realistic ground motion records. Optimality criteria are formulated based on fully stressed characteristics of the optimal solution, and a simple analysis/redesign procedure is proposed for attaining optimal designs. Results of four examples presented compare well to those obtained using formal gradient-based optimization.