Abstract
The present paper deals with the allocation problem of multi-story shear walls in 3D RC frames. This problem is formulated as a minimum weight design problem under constraints of ultimate strength, relative story displacement and dynamic eccentric ratio. In the present paper, this problem is formulated as two combinatorial problems, which are searching problem of feasible solutions at each floor and minimization problem of total weight of walls. Optimality technique based upon the branch-and-bound method is applied to each problem. Several example of multi-story frames are optimally designed with discussion on influence of the number of stories, scale of plan, and allocation constraint at each floor upon computing efficiency.
