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A firefly algorithm for the design of force and placement of friction dampers
for control of man-induced vibrations in footbridges

Article  in  Optimization and Engineering · November 2014

DOI: 10.1007/s11081-014-9269-3

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Optim Eng (2015) 16:633–661
DOI 10.1007/s11081-014-9269-3

A firefly algorithm for the design of force

and placement of friction dampers for control
of man-induced vibrations in footbridges

Letı́cia Fleck Fadel Miguel •

Leandro Fleck Fadel Miguel • Rafael Holdorf Lopez

Received: 17 January 2014 / Accepted: 1 November 2014 / Published online: 12 November 2014
 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract It is known that the use of passive energy dissipation devices, as friction
dampers, reduces significantly the dynamic response of structures subjected to
dynamic actions. However, the parameters of each damper as well as the best
placement of these devices remain difficult to determine. Although some studies on
optimization of tuned mass damper and viscous/viscoelastic dampers are being
developed, works on optimum use of friction dampers is still lacking. Thus, in this
paper, the simultaneous optimization of force and placement of friction dampers is
proposed. To solve this optimization problem, the recently developed firefly algo-
rithm is employed, which is able to deal with non-convex optimization problems,
involving mixed discrete and continuous variables. For illustration purposes, two
common footbridges are analyzed, in which the cost function is to minimize the
maximum acceleration of the structures, whereas forces and positions of friction
dampers are the design variables. The results showed that the proposed method was
able to determine the optimum friction forces of each damper as well as their best
positions in the structures. The maximum acceleration was reduced in more than
95 % for the Warren truss footbridge, with three friction dampers, and in more than
92 % for the Pratt truss footbridge, with only two friction dampers. In addition, the
proposed methodology is quite general and it is believed that it can be recom-
mended as an effective tool for optimum design of friction dampers for structural

L. F. F. Miguel (&)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre,
Brazil
e-mail: letffm@ufrgs.br

L. F. Fadel Miguel  R. H. Lopez

Department of Civil Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
e-mail: leandro.miguel@ufsc.br
R. H. Lopez
e-mail: rafael.holdorf@ufsc.br

123
634 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

response control. Thus, this paper shows that the design of friction dampers can be
done in a safe and economic way.

Keywords Friction dampers optimization  Dynamic problem optimization 

Firefly algorithm  Mixed discrete and continuous variables  Passive vibration
control  Man-induced vibrations  Footbridges

1 Introduction

Reduction of vibration amplitudes has been the subject of study of many

researchers. For example, the use of vibration absorber dates to the 1900s when
Frahm, in 1909, proposed a kind of tuned mass damper (TMD). The Frahm model
was applied to a main spring-mass without damping that was attached with a small
spring-mass without damping in order to reduce the displacement of the main mass
subjected to harmonic load. More recently, a quick increase in the development and
application of passive energy dissipation devices, such as viscoelastic dampers,
viscous fluid dampers, metallic yield dampers and friction dampers, has occurred
(Soong and Dargush 1997). A growing amount of these dampers have been installed
in structures around the world, as for example, in the McConnel Library of the
Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, a total of 143 friction dampers were
employed; in the Funade Pedestrians Bridge tower in Osaka, Japan, an air damper
type TMD was developed for the structure; and a total of 260 viscoelastic dampers
were incorporated into the Columbia SeaFirst Building in Seattle, USA (Soong and
Dargush 1997). The objective of these devices is to absorb a portion of the input
energy, due to earthquake, wind or human excitation, for instance, reducing the
dynamic response of the structure. The effectiveness of these dampers to reduce the
dynamic response is known and it has been shown in several studies (e.g., Rocha
et al. 2004; Miguel et al. 2004; Curadelli and Riera 2004; Curadelli et al. 2006;
Miguel et al. 2006; Min et al. 2010). However, the development of methods for
optimum use of these devices is still an important research issue.
Especially in the last decade, for utilization of these dampers in an economic
way, several researchers started to study the optimization of their parameters as well
as their best positions in a structure. Although a great amount of papers on
optimization of TMD exists (e.g., Chen and Wu 2001; Li and Qu 2006; Lee et al.
2006; Desu et al. 2006; Warnitchai and Hoang 2006; Ghosh and Basu 2007; Hoang
et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2009; Marano et al. 2010; Dehghan-Niri et al. 2010; Arfiadi
and Hadi 2011; Farshi and Assadi 2011; Mohebbi et al. 2013; Fadel Miguel et al.
2013a; Lavan and Daniel 2013; Brzeski et al. 2014) and some works about optimum
design of viscous and viscoelastic dampers have been developed (e.g., Singh and
Moreschi 2002; Movaffaghi and Friberg 2006; Aydin et al. 2007; Marano et al.
2007; Aydin 2012; Sonmez et al. 2013), mainly for structures subjected to seismic
loads, papers dealing with the problem of simultaneous optimization of friction
dampers are very scarce and limited (Miguel et al. 2014). To the best of the authors’
knowledge, there is not any paper dealing with the optimization of friction dampers

123
A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 635

in structures subjected to human excitation, in which both parameters (friction

forces and placement) are optimized simultaneously.
Although there are similar studies for reducing the dynamic response by
optimizing TMD and viscoelastic dampers, mainly for buildings subjected to
seismic excitation, these works are not valid for friction dampers because each kind
of damper (TMD, viscoelastic or friction) has a different mechanical model, i.e., the
equation of motion (Eq. (1)) to determine the dynamic response of a structure with
dampers varies according to the type of damper installed in the structure. Therefore,
as the equation to calculate the accelerations is different, the objective function is
different, and moreover the design variables also vary according to the type of
damper. Consequently, the optimum results also vary. Furthermore, there is a larger
difficulty in the case of systems involving friction due to the fact that the function
that represents the friction force is nonlinear and discontinuous. Hence, there are
few studies in the literature involving friction dampers in relation to other types of
dampers.
Within this context, the present paper intends to be the first one to deal with the
problem of optimizing the friction forces of each damper and the location of friction
dampers when installed in structures subjected to man-induced vibrations, in order
to achieve a desired level of reduction in the dynamic response. Thus, the main
novelty of the present paper is to propose a methodology for simultaneously
optimizing the positions and forces of friction dampers in structures subjected to
man-induced vibrations.
Because the location of a friction damper at a particular position of a structure is
a discrete number, it is a discrete design variable, whereas the friction forces of each
damper are best represented by continuous numbers, i.e., they are continuous design
variables. Then, the optimization algorithm must assess a mixed-variable optimi-
zation problem that includes both discrete and continuous variables at the same
time. Such problems are usually non-convex, and therefore must be solved by
optimization methods capable of handling this type of problem. Metaheuristic
algorithms are well suited to solving such optimization problems. Known
advantages of these algorithms include the following: (a) they do not require
gradient information and can be applied to problems in which the gradient is
difficult to obtain or simply does not exist; (b) they do not become stuck in local
minima if correctly tuned; (c) they can be applied to non-smooth or discontinuous
functions; (d) they furnish a set of optimal solutions instead of a single solution,
giving the designer a set of options from which to choose; and (e) they can be easily
employed to solve mixed variable optimization problems (Fadel Miguel et al.
2013b). Among the metaheuristic algorithms, the firefly algorithm (FA), developed
recently by Yang (2008), has shown to be more accurate and efficient than well-
established heuristic algorithms such as Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Particle
Swarm Optimization (PSO) (Fadel Miguel et al. 2013b). Therefore, the FA is
successfully employed for solving the optimization problem proposed in this paper.
The proposed optimization procedure is followed by verification through numerical
simulations. This paper is organized as follows: Sect. 2 presents the problem
formulation and Sect. 3 describes the FA. The numerical examples are presented in
Sect. 4, while the main conclusions drawn from this paper are presented in Sect. 5.

123
636 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

2 Problem formulation

In this section, the equation of motion, the simulation procedure of man-induced

excitation and the proposed optimization problem are presented.

2.1 Equation of motion

The differential equation that governs the motion of a n degree of freedom system
with added friction dampers and subjected to human-induced excitation may be
written as:
xðtÞ þ C€
M€ xðtÞ þ KxðtÞ ¼ Fex ðtÞ  Ff ðtÞ; ð1Þ
in which M, C and K represent the n 9 n structural mass, inherent damping and
stiffness matrices, respectively, and n is the number of degrees of freedom. The
damping matrix C is assumed to be proportional to the M and K matrices, as:
C = aM ? bK. xðtÞ is the n-dimensional displacement vector and a dot over a
symbol indicates differentiation with respect to time. Fex ðtÞ is a n-dimensional
vector representing the external forces, i.e., the human walking excitation and Ff ðtÞ
is the n-dimensional Coulomb friction force vector, which is defined by:
Ff ðtÞ ¼ Ffn sgnðvðtÞ
_ Þ; ð2Þ
in which Ffn ¼ lN, being l the friction coefficient, assumed to be constant and N
_ is the vector of relative velocity between the two
the vector of normal force. vðtÞ
ends of the friction damper and sgnðvðtÞ
_ Þ is the signal function, defined by:
8
< þ1 for vðtÞ
_ [0
sgnðvðtÞÞ ¼ 0
_ for vðtÞ ¼ 0
_ ð3Þ
:
1 for vðtÞ\0
_

As may be seen in Eqs. (2) and (3), the magnitude of the friction force is constant,
but its direction is always opposite to that of the sliding velocity. In the problem in
consideration in this paper of determining and minimizing the dynamic response of
structures with friction dampers, the direction of the sliding velocity changes often.
These many changes of the velocity direction cause many discontinuities in the
friction force, complicating the process of evaluating the response of systems with
friction dampers.
Within this context, many authors proposed alternative methods to represent the
friction force. Tan and Rogers (1995) present an analysis of the friction energy
dissipated by each mode to derive several models of equivalent friction modal
damping. These friction damping factors can be subtracted from the overall modal
damping factors when doing computer simulations where the dynamic friction
forces are calculated directly. In order to verify whether the equivalent friction
damping models are reasonable, Tan and Rogers (1995) simulated a two degree of
freedom system using three approaches: a piecewise continuous analytical method,
numerical integration with a spring-damper friction model, and numerical
integration with equivalent friction damping. Five cases with periodic and non-

123
A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 637

periodic excitation were considered. These authors concluded that the equivalent
friction damping works very well for cases where sliding motions predominate, and
for long periods of sticking, the overall motions are predicted well but the detailed
motions are approximated.
Mostaghel and Davis (1997) showed that the discontinuous Coulomb friction force
can be represented by at least four different continuous functions. Each of these
functions involves one constant (ai) that controls the level of accuracy of that functions
representation of the friction force. The accuracy of the various representations was
verified by these authors, comparing the response of a single degree freedom system,
obtained through numerical solutions utilizing these representations, with an exact
analytical solution. The four continuous functions analyzed by Mostaghel and Davis
(1997) are given in Eq. (4) and are represented in Fig. 1.
f1 ða1 ; v_ Þ ¼ Erf ða1 v_ Þ
f2 ða2 ; v_ Þ ¼ Tanhða2 v_ Þ
ð4Þ
f3 ða3 ; v_ Þ ¼ ð2=pÞArcTanða3 v_ Þ
f4 ða4 ; v_ Þ ¼ a4 v=
_ ð1 þ a4 jv_ jÞ

In the present paper, as well as in previous works (Miguel 2002; Miguel and
Riera 2002; Curadelli et al. 2003; Miguel and Riera 2008; Miguel et al. 2014), the
authors chose to use the non-linear function f2 ða2 ; v_ Þ ¼ Tanhða2 v_ Þ; suggested by
Mostaghel and Davis (1997). In this paper it is assumed a2 = 1e10.
A computational routine was developed by the authors in Matlab language for
determining the dynamic response of structures with added friction dampers, i.e., for
solving Eq. (1). This developed program uses the finite difference explicit method,
which is a direct method of integration of the motion equations in the time domain.

1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
fi

-1.0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6 f1
f2
-0.8 f3
f4
-1.0
Dimensionless Velocity

Fig. 1 Comparisons of the four representations of the signal function (ai = 10) proposed by Mostaghel
and Davis (1997)

123
638 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

Fig. 2 Three different friction dampers developed and tested by Miguel (2002)

And, as previously explained, the discontinuous signal function was replaced by the
continuous hyperbolic tangent function, according to the function f2 of Eq. (4).
The objective function considered in this paper requires the evaluation of the
maximum acceleration, i.e., the determination of the maximum absolute value of the
vector x€ðtÞ; which is obtained solving Eq. (1). Here this maximum acceleration is
denoted by amax. For that purpose, initially it is necessary to define the dynamic
excitation, which is presented in the next section.
In order to illustrate, Fig. 2 shows a photo of three different friction dampers
developed and tested by Miguel (2002) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do
Sul (UFRGS).

2.2 Simulating human excitation

The human excitation load is described in this section, following the dynamic model
suggested by Bachmann and Ammann (1987). The motion forms of walking can be
characterized by the pacing rate, the forward velocity and the time function of the
loading. For normal walk on horizontal surface, Bachmann and Ammann (1987)
suggested a pacing rate fs in the range 1.5–2.5 Hz. Assuming a Gaussian normal
distribution around the mean of 2.0 Hz yields a standard deviation of 0.13–0.18 Hz.
The velocity of pedestrian propagation vs is coupled with the pacing rate fs through
the stride length ls. For normal walk, Bachmann and Ammann (1987) suggested the
following values: fs = 2.0 Hz, vs = 1.5 m/s and ls = 0.75 m. Finally, according to
Bachmann and Ammann (1987), the load-time function for walking can be idealized
by the following expression:
Fp ðtÞ ¼ G þ DG1 sinð2pfs tÞ þ DG2 sinð4pfs t  /2 Þ þ DG3 sinð6pfs t  /3 Þ; ð5Þ
in which G is the weight of the person, generally assumed to be equal to 800 N; DG1
is the load component (amplitude) of the first harmonic, assumed to DG1 = 0.4G;

123
A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 639

DG2 is the load component (amplitude) of the second harmonic, assumed to

DG2 = 0.1G; DG3 is the load component (amplitude) of the third harmonic,
assumed to DG3 = 0.1G; fs is the pacing rate, assumed to fs = 2.0 Hz; u2 is the
phase angle of the second harmonic relative to the first harmonic, assumed to
u2 = p/2; and u3 is the phase angle of the third harmonic relative to the first
harmonic, assumed to u3 = p/2.
The explanations above are for a single person, however, in practice, the
combined effect of more than one person at a time is more realistic for many
structures, as footbridges, for example. According to Bachmann and Ammann
(1987), a mathematical description of excitation by more than one pedestrian is
difficult. However, Bachmann and Ammann (1987) suggest to assume a Poisson
distribution for the arrival probability of pedestrians, and derive an enhancement
factor m to be applied to the vibration amplitude caused by a single pedestrian in the
center of the span. This enhancement factor is given by:
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
m ¼ kT0 ; ð6Þ
in which k is the mean flow rate, i.e., person/s over width of the deck for a certain
period of time; T0 is the time necessary to cross the footbridge of length Lf at
velocity vs, i.e., T0 = Lf/vs; and kT0 represents the number of people simultaneously
on the footbridge at the given mean flow rate.

2.3 Placement and force optimization

Based primarily upon an analogy to the automotive brake, Pall et al. (1980) began
the development of passive frictional dampers to improve the seismic response of
structures. The objective is to slow down the motion of buildings ‘‘by braking rather
than breaking’’ (Pall and Marsh 1982). Despite the use of friction dampers have
around 30 years, a mathematical optimization procedure for its use, based on
optimization algorithms, does not exist yet or it is not widely known. Thus, in this
section, the proposed method for optimum design of friction dampers will be
described.
A very common criterion used to assess the effectiveness of passive energy
dissipation devices, as friction dampers, installed on a structure is their capability to
reduce the maximum acceleration (amax) of the structure. Additionally, for
footbridges subjected to human excitation, a very important design parameter is
the maximum acceleration generated on the footbridge. Thus, for these reasons, in
this paper, the optimization problem has as objective function to minimize the
maximum acceleration of the structure, which is determined by solving Eq. (1) in
the time domain. However, other objective functions could be employed, because
the proposed method is flexible and the objective function can be changed easily, as
long as it can be calculated numerically. The design variables are the friction forces
of each friction damper (Ffn), considered as continuous variables, and the positions
of each passive energy dissipation device in the structure (vector P), considered as
discrete variables. The corresponding constraints are the allowed limits for the
friction forces (lower bound B Ffn B upper bound), the maximum number of

123
640 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

dampers to be installed (nd) in the structure and the number and position of
predefined possible locations for the dampers (np).
Figure 3 shows a general model of a segment of a footbridge, in which is possible
to see four possible locations for the friction dampers (Pi-1, Pi, Pi?1 and Pi?2).
Consequently, P is expressed as a np-dimensional vector of position consisting of
0 and 1, which indicates that there is a damper in that position if the number is 1.
Therefore, the maximum number of ‘‘ones’’ in the vector P is nd. That is, premising
a maximum number of dampers, the optimal variable shows different positions of
number 0 and 1.
Therefore, given all predetermined possible positions for the friction dampers in
the structure and the desired maximum number of devices to be placed in the
structure, it is of interest to determine the optimal location of each friction damper
and the optimal friction forces of such devices to achieve a maximum reduction in
the structural response, when the structure is excited by human walking, employing
the firefly algorithm described in next Section. For each optimization run, the
program gives the optimal placement of the friction dampers and the optimal
friction force of each damper, having the maximum number of available dampers
and predefined positions constrained.
It is important to point out that the proposed method is flexible and it allows the
user to select the maximum number of dampers to be installed and also whether or
not predefined possible positions for the friction dampers will be adopted (i.e., the
user can test all positions). This flexibility of the proposed method is very
interesting, especially in case of large structures. For large footbridges, in which
there are a lot of possible locations for the friction dampers (i.e., a lot of design
variables—positions and friction forces), test all positions will require a high
computational time. Thus, based on the experience of the designer, the proposed
method allows that he predefines some possible locations and checks if the desired
level of reduction was achieved, reducing the number of design variables. On the
other hand, for small structures (with a small number of design variables—a few
positions and friction forces) or in those in which the designer prefers not predefine
some positions, it is possible to use the proposed method without preselect possible
locations for friction dampers, i.e., testing all positions. Of course, the designer must
be aware that the higher the number of design variables, the more computational
demanding the solution of the problem is.
Summarizing, as explained before, design variables, objective function and
design constraints of the optimization problem are:

Friction damper

Pi-1 Pi Pi+1 Pi+2

Fig. 3 General model for optimization of placement and force of friction dampers

123
A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 641

Design variables:
– Friction forces of each damper (continuous variable): Ffn
– Positions of each damper (discrete variable): P

Objective function:
– To minimize the maximum acceleration: amax

Design constraints:
– min
Limits for the friction forces: Ffn  Ffnj  Ffn
max
; j ¼ 1; . . .; nd
– Number of available positions: np
– Maximum number of dampers: nd

For convenience of notation, the design variables are grouped into the vector
y ¼ ½Ffn ; P. Thus, the optimization problem can be posed as:
Find y
Minimizes JðyÞ ¼ amax ðyÞ
min
Ffn  Ffnj  Ffn
max
; j ¼ 1; . . .; nd ð7Þ
Subject to number of available positions ¼ np
maximum number of dampers ¼ nd

3 Firefly algorithm (FA)

The optimization problem stated in Sect. 2.3 can be efficiently solved by using the
firefly algorithm (FA).
The FA is a recent metaheuristic optimization algorithm developed by Yang
(2008) and it is inspired by the flashing behavior of fireflies. According to Yang
(2010), FA optimization has three idealized rules: (a) all fireflies are unisex, so that
one firefly is attracted to other fireflies regardless of their sex; (b) attractiveness is
proportional to brightness, so for any two flashing fireflies, the less bright firefly will
move towards the brighter firefly. Both attractiveness and brightness decrease as the
distance between fireflies increases. If there is no firefly brighter than a particular
firefly, that firefly will move randomly. And (c) the brightness of a firefly is affected
or determined by the landscape of the objective function.
In other words, Yang (2010) affirms that a firefly will be attracted to brighter or
more attractive fireflies, and at the same time they will move randomly. Based on
these three rules, the basic steps of the FA can be summarized as the pseudo-code
adapted from Yang (2010).

123
642 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

There are two essential components to FA: the variation of light intensity (I) and
the formulation of attractiveness (b). The latter is assumed to be determined by the
brightness of the firefly, which in turn is related to the objective function of the
problem under study.
As light intensity and attractiveness decrease and the distance from the source
increases, the variation of light intensity and attractiveness should be a monoton-
ically decreasing function. For example, the light intensity can be:
  2
I rij ¼ I0 ec rij ð8Þ
in which I0 is the original light intensity, the light absorption coefficient c is a
parameter of the FA and rij is the distance between fireflies i and  j at yi and yj,
respectively, which can be defined as the Cartesian distance rij ¼ yi  yj .
Because a firefly’s attractiveness is proportional to the light intensity seen by
other fireflies, it can be defined by:
  2
b rij ¼ b0 ec rij ð9Þ
in which b0 is the attractiveness at r = 0.
Finally, the probability of a firefly i being attracted to another, more attractive
(brighter) firefly j is determined by:
2
 
Dyi ¼ b0 ec rij ytj  yti þ aei ; ytþ1
i ¼ yti þ Dyi ð10Þ

in which t is the generation number, ei is a random vector (e.g., the standard

Gaussian random vector in which the mean is 0 and the standard deviation is 1) and
a is the randomization parameter (a [ [0,1]).
The first term on the right-hand side of Eq. (10) represents the attraction between
the fireflies and the second term is the random movement. In other words, Eq. (10)
shows that a firefly will be attracted to brighter or more attractive fireflies and also
move randomly. Equation (10) indicates that the user must set parameters b0, c, a
and the distribution of ei to apply the FA, and also shows that there are two limit

123
A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 643

cases when c is small or large: (a) If c approaches zero, the attractiveness and
brightness are constants, and consequently, a firefly can be seen by all other fireflies.
In this case, the FA reverts to an accelerated version of PSO (Particle Swarm
Optimization); and (b) If c approaches infinity, the attractiveness and brightness
approach zero, and all fireflies are short-sighted or fly in a foggy environment,
moving randomly. In this case, the FA reverts to the pure random search algorithm.
Hence, the FA generally corresponds to the situation falling between these two limit
cases. According to Yang (2010), in most application, c typically varies from 0.1 to
10.
Finally, as it was shown, in the FA optimization, the diversification is represented
by the random movement component, while the intensification is implicitly
controlled by the attraction of different fireflies and the attractiveness strength b.
Diversification means to generate diverse solutions so as to explore the search space
on the global scale, while intensification means to focus on the search in a local
region by exploiting the information that a current good solution is found in this
region. This is in combination with the selection of the best solutions. The selection
of the best ensures that the solutions will converge to the optimality, while the
diversification via randomization avoids the solutions being trapped at local optima
and, at the same time, increases the diversity of the solutions. The good combination
of these two major components will usually ensure that the global optimality is
achievable (Yang 2010).
Several researchers have focused their attention on solving optimization
problems using FA in a growing number of papers (e.g., Horng and Liou 2011;
Horng 2012; Yang et al. 2012; Chandrasekaran and Simon 2012; Sayadi et al. 2012;
Coelho and Mariani 2012; Fateen et al. 2012; Gandomi et al. 2013; Srivatsava et al.
2013; Fister et al. 2013a). However, its implementation in the field of structural
optimization is still fairly recent and requires a substantial amount of further study
(e.g., Gandomi et al. 2011; Miguel and Fadel Miguel, 2012a, b; Talatahari et al.
2012; Fadel Miguel et al. 2013b; Miguel and Fadel Miguel 2013). For a
comprehensive review of firefly algorithms the reader is referred to Fister et al.
(2013b).
Finally, in order to summarize, besides the pseudo code presented before, a
flowchart of the FA is presented in Fig. 4. Additionally, for more information about
the FA, it is recommended the book of Yang (2010), which provides not only
various details about the method, but it also provides the computational codes
(algorithm) for implementation.

4 Illustrative examples

In this section, two common footbridges (a Warren Truss and a Pratt Truss) will be
studied in order to assess the capacity of the proposed method to optimize the
dynamic response of the structures with friction dampers under human excitation.
The FA parameters, namely b0, c and a, are 1, 1 and 0.5, respectively, and ei
follows a uniform distribution between -0.5 and 0.5 for both examples. These values
assigned to the FA parameters were based on analyzes carried out in previous papers

123
644 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

Start

Select FA parameters, define variables, define

T
objective function J(y), y = (y1, ..., yd)

Generate initial population of fireflies

yi (i = 1, 2, ..., n)

Determine light intensity Ii at yi by J(yi)

t=1

i=1

j=1

N
Ii < Ij
Y
Move firefly i towards j

Vary attractiveness with distance r via e−γr

Evaluate new solutions

and update light intensity

Y
j=j+1 j+1≤d
N
Y
i=i+1 i+1≤n
N
Rank the fireflies and
find the current global best

t=t+1 Y t < MaxGeneration

N
Post-process results and visualization

End

Fig. 4 Flowchart of the firefly algorithm

123
A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 645

by the authors (e.g., Miguel and Fadel Miguel 2012a; Fadel Miguel et al. 2013b), in
which the FA was extensively tested and compared with other optimization
methods. Thus, the best parameters that resulted from these previous studies were
applied in the present paper.
For the determination of the maximum absolute value of the vector x€ðtÞ, called
amax, which is obtained solving Eq. (1), it is employed an in-house program
developed by the authors that uses the finite difference explicit method, which is a
direct method of integration of the motion equations in the time domain.
It should be noted that the footbridges studied in this paper are working on small
strains and small displacements. The load on the footbridges is only vertical, i.e.,
there are no axial loads. Therefore, the P-delta effect (second-order effects or
geometrical nonlinearities) is not taken into account and a linear elastic analysis is
justified.

4.1 Warren truss footbridge

The first example analyzed is the Warren truss footbridge, which is a 39 m long and
2.23 m high structure shown in Fig. 5. It is a steel structure with Young’s modulus
equal to 200GPa and specific mass of 7850 kg/m3. The cross sectional areas of the bars
are given in Table 1. The footbridge is modeled as a 2D FE truss structure consisting of
55 elements and 29 nodes, as illustrated in Fig. 5. Damping ratios for the first and
second modes are equal to 0.4 % (a = 2.1937 9 10-1 and b = 5.7790 9 10-5). The
first three natural frequencies of the structure are 5.996, 16.036 and 33.916 Hz.
As it may be seen in Fig. 5, there are thirteen predefined possible locations (i.e.,
np = 13) for the friction dampers, represented by P1, P2, …, P13. These devices are
assumed to be installed in diagonal members of the footbridge, by braces with
sufficient stiffness, as shown in Fig. 5.
According to Bachmann et al. (1995), an approximate serviceability acceleration
limit for footbridges can be obtained by Eqs. (11) or (12).
alim ¼ 0:5f10:5 ð11Þ

alim ¼ 0:25f10:78 ð12Þ

in which f1 is the fundamental frequency of the footbridge in Hz.
For the Warren truss footbridge studied in this paper, whose fundamental natural
frequency is 5.996 Hz, the serviceability acceleration limit results alim = 1.22 m/s2
(using Eq. 11) and alim = 1.01 m/s2 (using Eq. 12).

Braces with sufficient stiffness

1.5m 3.0m 1.5m
15 42 16 43 17 44 18 45 19 46 20 47 21 48 22 49 23 50 24 51 25 52 26 53 27 54 2855 29
2.23m

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 34 35
P11 36 37
P12 38 39
P1340 41
1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14
3.0m
39.0m

Fig. 5 Warren truss footbridge and possible locations of friction dampers

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646 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

Table 1 Cross sectional areas of the members of the Warren truss footbridge
Group Member number Area (m2)

Inferior chord 1–13 0.0060

Diagonals 14–41 0.0040
Superior chord 42–55 0.0080

In order to determine the dynamic response of this Warren truss footbridge, the
human excitation is simulated using Eq. (5) with the parameters suggested by
Bachmann and Ammann (1987), resulting in the load-time function shown in Fig. 6.
In order to take into account the number of people crossing the footbridge at the
same time, Eq. (6) is employed. The normal spatially unrestricted traffic, i.e., traffic
within which each individual could walk freely, is assumed. According to Živanović
et al. (2010), the ‘‘normal traffic’’ is also called ‘‘multiperson traffic’’ and ‘‘spatially
unrestricted traffic’’ and it refers to maximum density of around 0.3 people/m2. The
mean flow rate k is assumed to be 0.5 people/s, the velocity of pedestrian
propagation vs is taken equal to 1.5 m/s, and the footbridge length is 39 m. Thus, the
time necessary to cross the footbridge T0 is 26 s, and, consequently, the number of
people simultaneously on the footbridge kT0 is 13 people. Therefore, the
enhancement factor m results 3.6, and to provide the load-time function due to
normal traffic, the load-time function for walking of one person is multiplied by this
factor m.
Thus, initially the response of the structure without dampers is determined and
then the proposed optimization procedure is carried out to determine optimum
friction forces and location of each friction damper within the footbridge. The
maximum number of dampers to be installed (nd) in the structure is assumed to be 3
and the number of predefined possible locations for the dampers (np) is equal to 13,
as shown in Fig. 5. The allowable limit for the friction forces of each damper is
200 N B Ffn B 2,000 N. The integration step Dt was chosen to be equal to
2.6 9 10-4 s. The number of fireflies n and the number of iterations was set to 10
and 1,000, respectively. Twelve independent runs were carried out, and the results

1.6
1.4
1.2
Load/Weight

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
Time (s)

Fig. 6 Load-time function for walking of one person

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A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 647

Table 2 Optimal force and placement of friction dampers for the Warren truss footbridge
Run Best position (vector P) Best friction Maximum Acceleration
forces (Ffn) (N) (amax) (m/s2)

– Without dampers Uncontrolled structure 9.3013

1 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,482; 1,538; 898 0.4402
2 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,321; 1,642; 927 0.4434
3 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,380; 1,574; 928 0.4449
4 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,558; 1,468; 930 0.4453
5 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,426; 1,590; 906 0.4483
6 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,368; 1,506; 928 0.4503
7 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,488; 1,526; 921 0.4505
8 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,388; 1563; 916 0.4506
9 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,387; 1,581; 882 0.4512
10 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,297; 1,507; 910 0.4519
11 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,469; 1,500; 901 0.4524
12 [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,380; 1,530; 891 0.4526

are presented in Table 2, along with the value of maximum acceleration for the
uncontrolled structure, i.e., without dampers.
As it may be seen in Table 2, the results of twelve independent runs are very
similar. The best positions (vector P) is the same in all runs and the best total
friction forces is also very similar. The mean maximum acceleration is 0.4485 m/s2,
the standard deviation is 4.04 9 10-3 m/s2 and, consequently, the coefficient of
variation is 0.90 %. This little standard deviation from the mean value shows that
the proposed method is robust to find optimal force and placement of friction
dampers for vibration control. Any one of the twelve solutions presented in Table 2
can be used, resulting in a reduction of approximately 95.2 % in the maximum
acceleration at the center of the structure (node 22). As indicated by vector P, the
best location for the friction dampers is in the position of bars 15, 37 and 39 (P1,
P12 and P13).
In addition, it should be emphasized, as it may be observed in Table 2, that
another advantage of the proposed method is that it is able to provide multiple
optima and near-optimum solutions, thus giving a set of possibilities that satisfy the
desired level of reduction of the dynamic response.
Figure 7 shows the final configuration of the Warren truss footbridge after the
installation of the three optimized friction dampers. The devices were installed in
the positions P1, P12 and P13 with friction forces of 1,482, 1,538 and 898 N,
respectively.
Table 3 presents the maximum accelerations of the nodes on the superior chord
of the footbridge, for the uncontrolled structure and for the structure with the
optimal solution obtained in run 1 presented in Table 2. The reduction of the
maximum acceleration in each node obtained after the installation of the 3
optimized friction dampers is also presented in Table 3, resulting in values between
83 and 96 %. Figure 8 illustrates these maximum accelerations, without friction

123
648 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

Fig. 7 Final configuration of the Warren truss footbridge after the installation of the three optimized
friction dampers

Table 3 Maximum accelerations of the Warren truss footbridge

Node Maximum acceleration (m/s2) Reduction (%)

Without dampers With 3 friction dampers

16 0.9695 0.1021 89.47

17 3.0840 0.2604 91.56
18 5.1179 0.3403 93.35
19 6.8570 0.4030 94.12
20 8.1732 0.4636 94.33
21 8.9958 0.4596 94.89
22 9.3013 0.4402 95.27
23 9.0053 0.4871 94.59
24 8.0840 0.4529 94.40
25 6.7831 0.3564 94.75
26 5.0474 0.3224 93.61
27 3.0334 0.3102 89.77
28 0.9516 0.1545 83.76

Node Number
16 18 20 22 24 26 28
0
1
Maximum Acceleration (m/s2)

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
0 Dampers
9
3 Dampers
10

Fig. 8 Envelope diagrams of maximum acceleration for the Warren truss footbridge, without friction
dampers (red curve) and optimum design (blue curve). (Color figure online)

dampers and for the optimum design. Figure 9 shows the response at the center of
the footbridge (node 22), again without friction dampers and for the optimum
design.

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A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 649

Vertical Acceleration in the Central Node (node 22)

of the Footbridge
10
0 Dampers: amax = 9.30m/s2
8 3 Dampers: amax = 0.44m/s2
6
Acceleration (m/s2) 4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8
-10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time (s)

Fig. 9 Acceleration at the center of the Warren truss footbridge (node 22), without friction dampers (red
curve) and optimum design (blue curve). (Color figure online)

10

9
Maximum Acceleration (m/s2)

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Iterations

Fig. 10 Convergence curve for the Warren truss footbridge

Table 4 Comparison of the performance of the proposed firefly algorithm with the classical genetic
algorithm, for the Warren truss footbridge
Method Best position (vector P) Best friction Maximum acceleration
forces (Ffn) (N) (amax) (m/s2)

FA [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,482; 1,538; 898 0.4402

GA [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1] 1,944; 1,474; 644 0.4548

The convergence plot for this example is presented in Fig. 10.

Additionally, a comparison of the proposed method with classical Genetic
Algorithm (GA) is shown in Table 4, confirming again the effectiveness of the

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650 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

Vertical Acceleration in the Central Node (node 22) of the Footbridge

1.2
Random Positions: amax = 1.15m/s2
1 Optimized Positions: amax = 0.44m/s2

0.8
0.6
0.4
Acceleration (m/s2)

0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1
-1.2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
Time (s)

Fig. 11 Comparison of the FA results for the case of the Warren truss footbridge

proposed method. The GA parameters used for this study, namely generation and
population are equal to 20 and 500, respectively. In order to set the parameters of
the GA, several combinations of them was tested, and the ones presented above
were the parameters that provided the best results.
Besides the above simulation, plus four independent runs were carried out with
GA, totalizing five simulations. The results showed that the best positions (vector P)
is the same in all runs and the best total friction forces is also very similar. The mean
maximum acceleration is 0.4592 m/s2, the standard deviation is 5.17 9 10-3 m/s2
and, consequently, the coefficient of variation is 1.13 %. As can be observed, these
results are slightly higher than the results obtained with FA.
In addition, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in
another way, the optimal solution is compared with a solution obtained by
positioning the dampers (with the same total friction force) in a different position
from the optimized one. In this context, Fig. 11 shows a comparison of the optimal
solution obtained with the proposed method (Run 1 of Table 2: Friction
forces = 1,482; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 1,538; 898 N and Maximum
acceleration = 0.4402 m/s2) with the solution obtained installing dampers having
the same friction forces, but placed in different positions of the optimal ones
(Friction forces = 0; 0; 0; 1,482; 0; 0; 1,538; 0; 0; 898; 0; 0; 0 N and Maximum
acceleration = 1.1493 m/s2). As can be seen in Fig. 11, the maximum acceleration
obtained with dampers of same friction forces installed in random positions is
161.1 % greater than the maximum acceleration obtained with the dampers in the
optimum positions.
In order to demonstrate the suitability of optimizing the friction forces and
placement simultaneously, a numerical test that optimizes these parameters

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A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 651

x 10
-3 Vertical Displacement in the Central Node (node 22) of the Footbridge
8
0 Dampers: zmax = 0.0074m
3 Dampers: zmax = 0.0013m
6

4
Displacement (m)

-2

-4

-6

-8
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time (s)

Fig. 12 Displacement at the center of the Warren truss footbridge, without friction dampers (red curve)
and with the 3 friction dampers obtained in run 1 of Table 2 (blue curve). (Color figure online)

following a separated way is carried out. For this comparison, first it is set the
friction forces of the 3 dampers in 800 N, and then it is optimized the placement of
these 3 dampers, resulting in the positions P1, P12 and P13 (800; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0;
0; 0; 0; 800; 800) N. After that, it is set these 3 positions and it is optimized the
friction forces of these 3 dampers, resulting in 1,488, 1,697 and 963 N, respectively
(1,488; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 1,697; 963)N. These friction forces and placement
resulted in a maximum acceleration of 0.4527 m/s2 at the center of the footbridge.
Analyzing the results of this optimization of the friction forces and placement
following a separated way, it is noted that the results of the positions of dampers are
exactly the same obtained in the simultaneous optimization, and the friction forces
are very similar to those obtained in the simultaneous optimization. The result of the
maximum acceleration at the center of the footbridge was slightly higher than those
obtained in the simultaneous optimization.
It should be noted that despite the results of the separate and simultaneous
optimization have given very similar, the great advantage of the simultaneous
optimization is the computational cost, which is almost half the time of the separate
optimization. This fact is very important since the computational time in a dynamic
problem is high.
Additionally, as explained before, the proposed method is flexible and other
objective functions could be used to assess the effectiveness of friction dampers.
Another very common objective function is the minimization of the maximum
displacement of the footbridges. Nevertheless, usually when the acceleration is
minimized, the displacement is also reduced, as may be seen in Fig. 12. A reduction

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652 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

Braces with sufficient stiffness

18 48 19 49 20 50 21 51 22 52 23 53 24 54 25 55 26 56 27 57 28 58 29 59 30 60 31 61 32
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12
2.5m

17 33 18 34 19 35 20 36 21 37 22 38 23 39 24 40 25 41 26 42 27 43 28 44 29 45 30 46 31 47 32

1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 16 17
3.0m
48.0m

Fig. 13 Pratt truss footbridge and possible locations of friction dampers

Table 5 Cross sectional areas of the members of the Pratt truss footbridge
Group Member number Area (m2)

Inferior chord 1–16 0.0090

Diagonals 17–32 0.0065
Vertical members 33–47 0.0055
Superior chord 48–61 0.0105

of around 82 % in the maximum displacement may be seen, after the installation of

the optimized friction dampers given in run 1 of Table 2.
Finally, in this example it was shown that the proposed methodology to design
the passive control system of footbridges successfully reduced the maximum
acceleration of the structure to acceptable levels, automatically setting the position
and friction forces of the friction dampers. Also, as expected, it was more efficient
than randomly choosing the position of these dampers and faster than optimize each
parameter separately. The proposed method was also able to reduce the maximum
displacement.

4.2 Pratt truss footbridge

The second example analyzed is the Pratt truss footbridge 48 m long and 2.50 m
high shown in Fig. 13. It is a steel structure with Young’s modulus equal to
200 GPa and specific mass of 7,850 kg/m3. The cross sectional areas of the bars are
given in Table 5. The footbridge is modeled as a 2D FE truss structure consisting of
61 elements and 32 nodes, as shown in Fig. 13. Damping ratios for the first and
second modes are equal to 0.4 % (a = 1.4883 9 10-1 and b = 8.2748 9 10-5).
The first three natural frequencies of the structure are 4.002, 11.385 and 24.370 Hz.
As it may be seen in Fig. 13, there are twelve predefined possible locations (i.e.,
np = 12) for the friction dampers, represented by P1, P2, …, P12. These devices are
assumed to be installed in diagonal members of the footbridge, by braces with
sufficient stiffness, as shown in Fig. 13.
For the Pratt truss footbridge in consideration in this paper, whose fundamental
natural frequency is 4.002 Hz, the serviceability acceleration limit, according to
Bachmann et al. (1995), results alim = 1.00 m/s2 (using Eq. 11) and alim = 0.74 m/s2
(using Eq. 12).
In order to determine the dynamic response of this Pratt truss footbridge, the
human excitation is simulated using Eq. (5) with the parameters suggested by

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A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 653

Table 6 Optimal force and placement of friction dampers for the Pratt truss footbridge
Run Best position (vector P) Best friction forces (Ffn) (N) Maximum acceleration
(amax) (m/s2)

– Without dampers Uncontrolled structure 7.3115

1 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,938; 1,795 0.5187
2 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,886; 1,911 0.5193
3 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,853; 1,905 0.5226
4 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,802; 1,807 0.5254
5 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,699; 1,957 0.5264
6 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,894; 1,756 0.5267
7 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,905; 1,931 0.5275
8 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,867; 1,903 0.5306
9 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,860; 1,858 0.5308
10 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,833; 1,879 0.5309
11 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,903; 1,770 0.5311
12 [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,813; 1,806 0.5316

Bachmann and Ammann (1987), resulting again in the load-time function shown in
Fig. 6.
In order to take into account the number of people crossing the footbridge at the
same time, Eq. (6) is used. As in the first example, the normal spatially unrestricted
traffic is assumed (density of around 0.3 people/m2). Knowing that footbridge’s
length is 48 m and its width is 2 m, the resulting area is 96 m2. Thus, the mean flow
rate k is assumed to be 1.0 people/s, the velocity of pedestrian propagation vs is
taken equal to 1.5 m/s, and the footbridge length is 48 m. Therefore, the time
necessary to cross the footbridge T0 is 32 s, and, consequently, the number of people
simultaneously on the footbridge kT0 is 32 people. Thus, the enhancement factor
m results 5.66, and to provide the load-time function due to normal traffic, the load-
time function for walking of one person is multiplied by this factor m. This results in
a density of 0.33 people/m2.
Initially, the response of the structure without dampers is determined and then the
proposed optimization procedure is carried out to determine optimum friction forces
and location of each friction damper within the footbridge. The maximum number
of dampers to be installed (nd) in the structure is assumed to be 2 and the number of
predefined possible locations for the dampers (np) is equal to 12, as shown in
Fig. 13. The allowable limit for the friction forces of each damper is 200 N B Ffn -
B 2,000 N. The integration step Dt was chosen to be equal to 3.2 9 10-4 s. The
number of fireflies n and the number of iterations was set to 10 and 1,000,
respectively. Twelve independent runs were carried out, and the results are
presented in Table 6, along with the value of maximum acceleration for the
uncontrolled structure, i.e., without dampers.
As it may be seen in Table 6, the results of twelve independent runs are very
similar. The best positions (vector P) is the same in all runs and the best total

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654 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

Fig. 14 Final configuration of the Pratt truss footbridge after the installation of the two optimized
friction dampers

friction forces is also very similar. The mean maximum acceleration is 0.5268 m/s2,
the standard deviation is 4.58 9 10-3 m/s2 and, consequently, the coefficient of
variation is 0.87 %. This little standard deviation from the mean value shows that
the proposed method is robust to find optimal force and placement of friction
dampers for vibration control. Any one of the twelve solutions presented in Table 6
can be used, resulting in a reduction of approximately 92.8 % in the maximum
acceleration at the center of the structure (node 25). As indicated by vector P, the
best location for the friction dampers is in the position of bars 19 and 30 (P2 and
P11).
It should be emphasized, as may be observed in Table 6, that another advantage
of the proposed method is that it is able to provide multiple optima and near-
optimum solutions, thus giving a set of possibilities that satisfy the desired level of
reduction of the dynamic response.
Figure 14 shows the final configuration of the Pratt truss footbridge after the
installation of the two optimized friction dampers. The devices were installed in the
positions P2 and P11 with friction forces of 1,938 and 1,795 N, respectively.
Table 7 presents the maximum accelerations of the nodes on the superior chord
of the footbridge, for the uncontrolled structure and for the structure with the
optimal solution obtained in run 1 presented in Table 6. The reduction of the

Table 7 Maximum
Node Maximum acceleration (m/s2) Reduction
accelerations of the Pratt truss
(%)
footbridge Without dampers With 2 friction dampers

18 1.1437 0.1692 85.21

19 2.4900 0.3067 87.68
20 3.7903 0.3679 90.29
21 4.9636 0.4361 91.21
22 5.9406 0.4931 91.70
23 6.6799 0.5188 92.23
24 7.1411 0.5407 92.43
25 7.3115 0.5187 92.91
26 7.0921 0.5577 92.14
27 6.6053 0.5466 91.72
28 5.8677 0.4612 92.14
29 4.9156 0.3562 92.75
30 3.7767 0.3447 90.87
31 2.4987 0.2742 89.03
32 1.1524 0.1751 84.81

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A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 655

Node Number
18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32
0

1
Maximum Acceleration (m/s2)
2

7 0 Dampers
2 Dampers
8

Fig. 15 Envelope diagrams of maximum acceleration for the Pratt truss footbridge, without friction
dampers (red curve) and optimum design (blue curve). (Color figure online)

Vertical Acceleration in the Central Node (node 25)

of the Footbridge
8
0 Dampers: amax = 7.31m/s2
6 2 Dampers: amax = 0.52m/s2

4
Acceleration (m/s 2)

-2

-4

-6

-8
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time (s)

Fig. 16 Acceleration at the center of the Pratt truss footbridge (node 25), without friction dampers (red
curve) and optimum design (blue curve). (Color figure online)

maximum acceleration in each node obtained after the installation of the 2

optimized friction dampers is also presented in Table 7, resulting in values between
84 and 93 %. Figure 15 illustrates these maximum accelerations, without friction
dampers and for the optimum design. Figure 16 shows the response at the center of
the footbridge (node 25), again without friction dampers and for the optimum
design.
The convergence plot for this example is presented in Fig. 17.
Additionally, a comparison of the proposed method with classical Genetic
Algorithm (GA) is shown in Table 8, confirming again the effectiveness of the

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656 L. F. F. Miguel et al.

Maximum Acceleration (m/s2)

6

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Iterations

Fig. 17 Convergence plot for the Pratt truss footbridge

Table 8 Comparison of the performance of the proposed firefly algorithm with the classical genetic
algorithm, for the Pratt truss footbridge
Method Best position (vector P) Best friction forces Maximum acceleration
(Ffn) (N) (amax) (m/s2)

FA [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,938; 1,795 0.5187

GA [0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0] 1,902; 1,951 0.5360

Vertical Acceleration in the Central Node (node 25) of the Footbridge

0.8
Random Positions: amax = 0.77m/s2
Optimized Positions: amax = 0.52m/s2
0.6

0.4
Acceleration (m/s2)

0.2

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6

-0.8
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32
Time (s)

Fig. 18 Comparison of the FA results for the case of the Pratt truss footbridge

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A FA for the design of force and placement of friction dampers 657

Vertical Displacement in the Central Node (node 25) of the Footbridge

0.014
0 Dampers: zmax = 0.0130m
0.012 2 Dampers: zmax = 0.0024m

0.01
0.008
0.006
Displacement (m)

0.004
0.002
0
-0.002
-0.004
-0.006
-0.008
-0.01
-0.012
-0.014
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time (s)

Fig. 19 Displacement at the center of the Pratt truss footbridge (node 25), without friction dampers (red
curve) and with the 2 friction dampers obtained in run 1 of Table 6 (blue curve). (Color figure online)

proposed method. The GA parameters used for this study, namely generation and
population are equal to 20 and 500, respectively.
Besides the above simulation, plus four independent runs were carried out with
GA, totalizing five simulations. The results showed that the best positions (vector P)
is the same in all runs and the best total friction forces is also very similar. The mean
maximum acceleration is 0.5397 m/s2, the standard deviation is 5.69 9 10-3 m/s2
and, consequently, the coefficient of variation is 1.05 %. As can be observed, these
results are slightly higher than the results obtained with FA.
Again, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in
another way, the optimal solution is compared with a solution obtained by
positioning the dampers (with the same total friction force) in a different position
from the optimized one. In this context, Fig. 18 shows a comparison of the optimal
solution obtained with the proposed method (Run 1 of Table 6: Friction forces = 0;
1,938; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 1,795; 0 N and Maximum acceleration = 0.5187 m/s2)
with the solution obtained installing dampers having the same friction forces, but
placed in different positions of the optimal ones (Friction forces = 0; 0; 0; 1,938; 0;
0; 0; 0; 1,795; 0; 0; 0 N and Maximum acceleration = 0.7719 m/s2).
As can be seen in Fig. 18, the maximum acceleration obtained with dampers of
same friction forces installed in random positions is 48.8 % greater than the
maximum acceleration obtained with the dampers in the optimum positions.
As in the Warren truss footbridge (example 1), a reduction of around 82 % in the
maximum displacement may be seen in Fig. 19, after the installation of the
optimized friction dampers given in run 1 of Table 6. This confirms that usually
when the acceleration is minimized, the displacement is also reduced.

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Finally, it was also shown in this example that the proposed methodology
successfully reduced the maximum acceleration of the structure, automatically
setting the position and friction forces of the friction dampers and it was more
efficient than randomly choosing the position of these dampers. Again the proposed
method was also able to reduce the maximum displacement.

5 Conclusions

In this paper a structural optimization design tool, based on the firefly algorithm, is
proposed to determine optimal force and placement of friction dampers in structures
under man-induced excitations. The proposed approach is used to calculate the
optimal friction forces of a given maximum number of friction dampers and their
optimal locations in footbridge structures in order to achieve a desired reduction
level in the dynamic response. The response reduction performance is expressed in
terms of reduction in the maximum acceleration at the center of the structure;
however, the proposed tool is flexible, allowing the user to change the performance
function.
To assess the effectiveness of the proposed method, numerical results are
presented for two footbridges: a Warren truss and a Pratt truss. The results of the
application examples show the capability of the proposed approach in solving the
optimization problems, reducing the maximum acceleration in more than 95 % for
the Warren truss footbridge, with three friction dampers, and in more than 92 % for
the Pratt truss footbridge, with only two friction dampers.
Furthermore, the study shows that the results of twelve independent runs, for both
examples, are very similar, i.e., the standard deviation from the mean value is small,
which shows that the proposed method is robust to find optimal force and placement
of friction dampers for vibration control. The computational cost is satisfactory for a
dynamic problem and it may be improved by taking advantage of the fact that FA is
suitable for parallel implementation.
Therefore, this proposed methodology can be recommended as an effective tool
for optimum design of friction dampers. Thus, this paper shows that the design of
friction dampers can be done in a safe and economic way.

Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge the financial support of CNPq and CAPES.

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