Abstract
An optimization approach is presented for improving energy dissipation capacity of a shear-type steel damper consisting of a low-yield-point steel panel, which is subjected to cyclic deformation. A general purpose finite element software package is combined with a heuristic optimization algorithm using a script language to carry out elastoplastic analysis iteratively to find optimal solutions. An optimization approach is also presented for identification of material parameters representing mixed nonlinear kinematic-isotropic hardening. It is demonstrated in the numerical examples that the performance of a shear-type hysteretic steel damper can be successfully improved by optimizing the geometry of the panel and the thicknesses of the stiffeners.
