Detailed Response to Reviewer 1

Manuscript Number: applsci-1259158

Title: A novel whale optimization algorithm for the design of tuned mass dampers under
earthquake excitations.
Authors: Luis Lara-Valencia, Daniel Caicedo, Yamile Valencia-Gonzalez.

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the commitment to improve the quality of
this publication. According to the comments, we have made the following modifications to
the paper (highlighted in yellow within the manuscript):

Reviewer comments:

This paper applies a heuristic optimization algorithm for optimal TMD tuning in multi-storey
shear frame buildings subjected to a small number of recorded ground motions (GMs).
The paper is well-structured and well-written, but there are a number of important issues that
the authors need to address before the paper can be considered for publication:

1. In the second paragraph of the introduction, the authors state that one reason of why
TMDs are ineffective for protecting buildings from earthquakes is because of
inability of TMD tuning methodologies to achieve wide-band multi-modal damping.
This is a misconception. It is well-established in the literature that, by default, a single
linear TMD can only target (and thus suppress) only one mode irrespective of tuning.
Wide-band multi-modal damping can be achieved by nonlinear TMDs, or multiple
distributed TMDs, or linear tuned mass damper inerters (TMDIs). The authors need
to edit the text accordingly.
Response: This comment was addressed. The introduction was re-written accordingly
to the reviewer observation. The discussion about this topic may be observed in lines
45-49. Additionally, we used this new added discussion to introduce properly the
literature review of previous works with a scope similar to that of our investigation
(Lines 50-61) as well as introducing better our work (Lines 62-64).

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2. The paper contains too many references, many of which are not relevant to the scope
of the paper such as REFs [25-33]. The authors should eliminate all irrelevant REFs.
Response: Effectively, the introduction had too many references with no value for
our research. The number of references was reduced from 78 to 65.

3. The tuned mass damper inerter (TMDI) acronym introduced in

(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.probengmech.2014.03.007) and widely studied for the
seismic protection of multi-storey buildings (eg. https://doi.org/10.1002/stc.2082,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2018.08.074) is used but not defined in the text.
Authors should describe it and discuss it in their literature review.
Response: The tuned mass damper inerter (TMDI) was properly introduced and
briefly described in lines 48-49. The references mentioned by the reviewer were also
included for that purpose (references [27-29] in the manuscript).

4. Why the authors limit the application of the optimization algorithm to only shear
framed structures (tri-diagonal stiffness matrix in Eq.(4))? Is the 32-storey building
in the numerical example a shear frame? Justification and clarification are needed
here.
Response: The purpose of these expressions is to illustrate the inclusion of the TMD
effect on a linear structural system with n horizontal degrees of freedom; and,
therefore, it can be extended to other structural models like 2-dimensional frames
derived from actual building numerical models with a static condensation applied to
all other vertical and rotational degrees of freedom as the case-study building
analyzed in this research. The discussion related to this comment can be found in lines
90-94 and lines 167-171.

5. Several same symbols in sections 2 and 3 are used to denote different quantities, such
as t, C, A This is confusing. The authors should use different symbols for different
quantities.
Response: The notation used in section 3 was properly changed to avoid confusion
or misinterpretation. Variables t, C, A were change for w, Γ, and Ψ respectively.

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6. The tuning of a linear TMD for linear structure is a very well addressed problem in
the literature and it is numerically trivial as it has only two design variables. The
authors need to discuss in the introduction and demonstrate in the text why a meta-
heuristic algorithm (out of the many they were tried before) is required for the task.
Response: The introduction was re-written to better justify the value of our work
using the WOA for the tuning of linear TMDs applied to multi-degree of freedom
systems using actual ground motion records as input excitations. (See lines 57-64 in
the introduction).

7. The authors undertake TMD tuning for a very small number (four) of recorded GMs.
This is quite unusual. TMD design is usually excitation agnostic since future GMs
may be very different from historic GMs, especially when no rigorous site-specific
GM record selection takes place. The authors need to state and justify the GM record
selection criteria. The four GMs have very different duration, PGA and frequency
content.
Response: Using only four acceleration records in the tunning process through WOA
is directly related to the scope of our work, which, in effect, had to be properly
explained. Thus, we clarified that the intention of our research is not to reproduce a
realistic tuning process for TMDs subjected to earthquake loads; instead, and like
with other recently proposed methodologies, is to prove the efficiency of the WOA
to find the best-fit design variables for TMDs applied on multi-story structures using
actual accelerograms as input excitations and to widely examine the dynamic
behavior of the structure under the action of such accelerograms. We also mentioned
in the conclusions of our investigation that future works should be focused on finding
realistic tuning values for TMDs through the WOA by analyzing the stochastic nature
of the seismic signal and the influences of parameters such as the damping and
frequency site. The discussion related to this comment can be found in section 4.1
from lines 184 to 191 and lines 401-404 of the conclusions.

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8. In many design cases reported in Tables 3 and 4, the design variables “hit” the
boundaries of the search range. This means that tuning is sub-optimal. More
importantly, the values of the design variables are not physically reasonable. For
example, zero or almost zero TMD damping means that no energy dissipation takes
place by the TMD which defies its usage. Also, a frequency ratio equal to 2 means
that the TMD is not tuned to the fundamental mode although it is place at the top floor
of a tall building. This means that it is not properly tuned: it is too stiff to act as a
proper TMD. The authors need to examine carefully their algorithm and numerical
implementation for systematic errors. It is also possible that tuning for some
particular recorded GMs is problematic in case the excitation is too
transient/impulsive. In every case, the numerical results are not meaningful.
Response: As reported in Table (3) and Table (4), some of the numerical values find
after applying the optimization methodology approach the bounds established in
Equations (21) and (22). We also share the reviewer's opinion since those results have
no meaning from a practical point of view. After careful analysis, we associated these
results with the impulsive nature of some of the seismic records used in the
optimization process. Nevertheless, and as we previously explained in comment 7,
we actually proved the effectiveness of our algorithm by comparing with DEM and
the ES process with precision to 2 decimal positions. The results obtained through
WOA show differences with the other methodologies (which have proved its
efficiency previously) from the 3rd decimal position, leading to the same global
response. Moreover, other works reported similar results when actual GMs were used
in the optimization process. On the other hand, the value of these numerical results is
to highlight the advantages of the WOA against other well-known and previously
tested methodologies (i.e., less computational cost and reductions processing time).
This comment was addressed in lines 224-232 of the manuscript, and we truly believe
that this discussion not only clarifies our vision but considerably increases the value
of our works for the readers of the journal, and to supporting some other future
investigations.

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9. The authors claim that response reductions for the two GMs considered in section 4.5
are “substantial”. I would argue that they are actually miniscule. Peak displacement
reduction for the relatively heavy TMD are only 6% and 2.3%. Note that the peak
responses are what matters most in earthquake engineering. Also, the authors should
check storey drifts and floor accelerations.
Response: Following the reviewer’s observation, we modified the discussion related
to this last part of the paper (Lines 364-375). Reductions up to 6% and 30% were
obtained using the average set of design parameters for the horizontal peak
displacements and RMS displacements, respectively. These reductions are coherent
since the objective function J1 (20% weight to the peak floor displacements and 80%
weight to the RMS response of displacements) was used to derive the average set of
design parameters. although small, we explained that these results proved the
robustness of the optimization based on WOA since the Petrolia and San Fernando
Earthquake present dynamic characteristics different from the GMs for which the
TMD was originally tuned. We also used this discussion to specify that in order to
achieve a realistic tuning and a more comprehensive analysis is required (e.g., a
greater number of records with greater probability of occurrence and its effects on the
structure must be analyzed). Besides, the conclusions (Lines 386-395, and 396-404)
were also modified to be consistent with the analysis developed from comments 8
and 9 especially. The authors appreciate the comments of the reviewer to improve the
quality and value of our work.