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Practical design of tall frame-tube and diagrids are formulated as two discrete optimization problems searching for minimal weight undercodified constraints under gravitational and wind loading due to Iranian codes of practice for steel structures (Part 6 & Part 10). Particular encoding of design vector is proposed to efficiently handle both problems leading to minimal search space. Two types of modeling are employed for the sizing problem one by rigid floors without rotational degrees of freedom and the other with both translational and rotational degrees of freedom. The optimal layout of diagrids using rigid model is searched as the second problem. Then performance of Mine Blast Optimization as a recent meta-heuristic is evaluated in these problems treating a number of three-dimensional structural models via comparative study with the common Harmony Search and Particle Swarm Optimization. Considerable benefit in material cost minimization is obtained by these algorithms using tuned parameters. Consequently, effectiveness of HS is observed less than the other two while MBO has shown considerable convergence rate and particle swarm optimiztion is found more trustable in global search of the second problem.

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Design of blast resistant structures is an important subject in structural engineering, attracting the attention of governments, researchers, and engineers. Thus, given the benefits of optimization in engineering, development and assessment of optimization methods for optimum design of structures against blast is of great importance. In this research, multi-objective optimization of steel moment frames subjected to blast is investigated. The considered objectives are minimization of the structural weight and minimization of the maximum inter-story drifts. The minimization of weight is related to obtain low cost designs and the minimization of inter-story drifts is related to obtain higher performance designs. By proposing a design methodology, a framework is developed for solving numerical problems. The developed framework is constructed by combining explicit finite element analysis of the structure and the NSGA-II optimization algorithm. The applicability and efficiency of the proposed method is shown through two numerical examples.

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In this paper, a design method is proposed for base isolation system under blast loading that this method is based on transforming design problem into an optimization problem. Genetic algorithm has been employed to solve the optimization problem whereas base isolation system properties have been considered as design variables and a linear combination of base drift and inter-story drift has been defined as objective function. A sensitivity analysis has been also conducted to investigate the effect of base isolation system properties on the blast performance of isolated structure. For numerical simulation, base isolation system is designed using the proposed method for controlling the response of an eight-story nonlinear shear-type building frame under blast loading. It has been found from the results that base isolation system is an effective control system under blast loading that its performance is dependent on the base isolation system characteristics especially the base mass. The optimization results also show that base isolation system designed using the proposed method is a well-designed control system for mitigating the blast response of structure and the proposed design method can be considered as an effective design approach under blast loading.

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Explosions are inevitable in today’s world; therefore, building structures may be dynamically loaded by an intense loading during the explosion. This is why regulatory bodies have provided instructions for determining the response of structures under the explosion load. Previous research has shown that when the explosion happens close to a structure, the ground explosion load can be modeled as tensile and compressive loads. This research investigates the response of an elastic-plastic single-degree-of-freedom system subjected to different explosive loads with different positive durations. The maximum intensity of blast load and blast duration remains constant, and the positive phase duration is the only variable that changes. The nonlinear dynamic responses of a single-degree-of-freedom system (i.e., displacement, velocity, acceleration, and ductility) are calculated using the linear acceleration method. The results show that increasing the positive phase duration and the amount of positive impact can increase the maximum displacement and ductility of the system. Also, it can be concluded that the maximum acceleration of the studied systems remains constant when the values for the blast impact and positive phase durations change.