Integrated design optimization of base-isolated concrete buildings under spectrum loading

Base isolation has become a practical control strategy for protecting structures against seismic hazards. Most previous studies on the optimum design of base-isolated structures have been focused on the design optimization of either the base isolation or the superstructure. It is necessary to simultaneously optimize both the base isolation and the superstructure as a whole to seek the most cost-efficient design for such structures. This paper presents an effective numerical optimization technique for the seismic design of base-isolated concrete building structures under spectrum loading. Attempts have been made to automate the integrated spectrum analysis and design optimization procedure and to minimize the total cost of the base-isolated building subject to design performance criteria in terms of the interstory drifts of the superstructure and the lateral displacement of the isolation system. In the optimal design problem formulation, the cost of the superstructure can be expressed in terms of concrete member sizes while assuming all these members to be linearly elastic under earthquake actions. However, the isolation system is assumed to behave nonlinearly, and its cost can be related to the effective horizontal stiffness of each isolator. Using the principle of virtual work, the lateral drift responses of concrete base-isolated buildings can be explicitly formulated and the integrated optimization problem can be solved by the optimality criteria method. The technique is capable of achieving the optimal balance between the costs of the superstructure and the isolation system while the design performance criteria can be simultaneously satisfied. One practical building example with and without base isolation is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the optimal design technique.