Expert Systems With Applications 169 (2021) 114531

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Expert Systems With Applications

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An efficient differential-evolution-based moving compensation

optimization approach for controlling differential column shortening in
tall buildings
Hoang-Anh Pham a, *, Duc-Xuan Nguyen b, Viet-Hung Truong c, *
a
National University of Civil Engineering, 55 GiaiPhong Road, Hanoi, Viet Nam
b
Vinh University, 182 Le Duan Road, Vinh, Viet Nam
c
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Thuyloi University, 175 Tay Son Street, Dong Da, Hanoi, Viet Nam

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this paper, an efficient procedure integrating the moving compensation optimization (MCO) and a modified
Tall building differential evolution algorithm is presented for finding the optimal solution to compensate for the differential
Differential column shortening column shortening (DCS) in tall buildings. In the proposed compensation procedure, the number of compensa­
Moving compensation optimization
tion groups is minimized by maximizing the number of floors for each group stepwise with constraints placed on
Differential evolution
the compensation error at each floor level. Two optimal compensation problems are presented, including the
deterministic optimal compensation (DOC) and the reliability-based optimal compensation (ROC), which
correspond to ignoring or considering the uncertainties that are inherent in the predicted shortenings as well as
the correction amounts. A parameter-free, adaptive differential evolution algorithm is established to solve MCO.
Applications for a 70-story building and a 72-story building are examined to demonstrate the efficiency and
reliability of the presented compensation approach.

1. Introduction
Column shortening occurs in every structure, and it is particularly
troublesome in tall buildings because of the large cumulative axial
deformation of vertical members like columns and walls due to huge
vertical loading (Fintel et al., 1987). The excessive shortening in vertical
members can cause either of both problems in the serviceability and
safety of the structure. Accordingly, the control of axial shortening in
vertical members becomes an essential factor to secure the structural
safety and serviceability of tall buildings.
In a tall building, vertical members can shorten by different amounts
because of the dissimilarity in loading conditions as well as design pa­
rameters like the reinforcement ration and the volume-surface ratio. The
differential shortenings among vertical members, or differential column
shortenings (DCS), are of primary concern since they cause additional
stress in the vertical members and additional forces in connecting
girders and slabs (Yi and Tong, 2007). Besides, slab tilt due to DCS may
cause unfavorable effects on nonstructural parts like the interior parti­
tion, cladding system, and plumbing system (Carreira and Poulos,
2007). Considering this, controlling DCS in the design and construction
of tall buildings has been attracting significant interest in the literature.
For instance, Kim and Shin (2014a, 2014b), Kim (2017), Kim (2018),
and Kim et al. (2019, 2020) proposed the outrigger system to reduce
DCS. The effect of the outrigger-belt system (OBS) on DCS in composite
tall buildings was also explored by Samarakkody et al. (2017), where it
was concluded that DCS can be minimized by suitable location of OBS.
For reinforced concrete (RC) tall buildings, Kim (2015), Kim and Shin
(2014a, 2012, 2014b) developed efficient methods by means of addi­
tional reinforcement to increase axial stiffness of vertical members
having a large magnitude of shortening.
To evade issues related to DCS, DCS should be accurately predicted
and properly compensated for (Fintel et al., 1987, Cargnino et al., 2012,
Fan et al., 2013). In a simple manner, the correction is conducted on
some chosen floors by the “lumped” amount that is equal to the sum of
differential shortenings of a group of floors. This method, referred to as
the lumped compensation method (LCM), cannot remove all the
different shortenings except the different shortening at the corrected
level. The errors between the compensation amount and the predicted
amount become larger as the number of floors lumped in the group in­
creases. The lumped correction amount can be averaged over the floors

* Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: anhph2@nuce.edu.vn (H.-A. Pham), truongviethung@tlu.edu.vn (V.-H. Truong).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2020.114531
Received 21 August 2020; Received in revised form 18 November 2020; Accepted 19 December 2020
Available online 24 December 2020
0957-4174/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H.-A. Pham et al. Expert Systems With Applications 169 (2021) 114531

to avoid excessive compensation errors. It means that the correction is 1997) is established to tackle the MCO problem. The proposed MCO
conducted on every floor by the same averaged amount. Obviously, the procedure is examined with two tall buildings, including a 70-story
number of floors in a group will determine the efficiency of the building in Fintel et al. (1987) and a practical 72-story building. The
compensation task. Increasing the number of floors will reduce the first example serves to show the advantage of MCO compared to OC and
number of compensation groups, and ease the compensation task; MAC in solving the DOC problem. The other example demonstrates the
however, it may increase the compensation error. Thus, a trade-off be­ applicability of MCO in the ROC problem, where uncertainties are of
tween construction simplicity and compensation efficiency needs to be concern.
taken into consideration when searching for a compensation solution.
Few systematic methodologies were established for searching the 2. Moving compensation optimization
compensation solution to control DCS, including the optimal compen­
sation approach (OC) (Park, 2003, Kim, 2008, Kim, 2011) and the 2.1. Formulation of problem objective
moving averaging correction approach (MAC) (Park et al., 2010, Park,
2003). In OC, the compensation is formulated as a constrained optimi­ Consider a tall building having NF floors. In order to compensate for
zation problem, and the objective of the compensation strategy is to the differential column shortenings, the floors are gathered into groups,
minimize the number of compensation groups (Park, 2003). However, and an equal correction amount is applied for every floor in a group
there are issues associated with the OC method proposed in Park (2003), (Park, 2003). Fig. 1 describes this grouping correction strategy, where xij
which are: 1) the optimization problem may have an unfixed number of is the anticipated differential shortening on the j-th floor in the i-th
variables since the number of lumped groups is unknown; 2) the group, and δi is the corresponding correction amount for the floors in the
objective function is often multi-modal, i.e., there are several possible i-th group.
compensation solutions. Thus, OC requires special optimization tech­ The proposed compensation strategy is to obtain a minimum number
niques to solve. In Park (2003), a parallel-simulated annealing (SA) al­ of groups to ease the construction task as suggested in Nguyen and Pham
gorithm (Leite and Topping, 1999, Park and Won Sung, 2002) was (2020). It is accomplished by maximizing the number of floors (Ni )
utilized for the optimal compensation of a 70-story building. In contrast,
gathered in each compensation group. Besides, the value of δi should be
MAC proposed in Park et al., 2010 and Park (2003) does not require to
chosen such that the magnitude of the sum compensation error is
solve an optimization problem. MAC is also an LCM using averaged
minimized.
correction values. The determination of compensation solution is per­
As aforementioned, there exists a difference between the compen­
formed stepwise by a rather simple computation routine. At each step,
sation amount δi and the anticipated differential shortening xij on each
MAC maximizes the number of floors for a lumped group by trials, where
the number of floors is increased until a constraint on the accumulated floor, which is determined as εij = xij − δi . The compensation error of the
compensation error at floor level is violated. In this way, MAC provides a i-th group is defined as
unique solution; however, the solution is not optimal under the given
Ni
∑ Ni (
∑ ) ∑Ni
constraint. A recently developed compensation method (Nguyen and ei = εij = xij − δi = xij − N i δi (1)
Pham, 2020), named MOC, takes advantage of both OC and MAC. j=1 j=1 j=1
Overall, a reliable compensation solution relies on the preciseness of
Hence, the sum compensation error over all floors up to the i-th
the anticipated DCS. However, the amount of column shortenings, both
group is determined by
elastic and inelastic, depends upon various factors such as the material
characteristics, loading history, and construction sequence, etc. The ∑ ∑i− Ni
∑
(2)
1
evaluation of DCS is therefore complicated, especially for modern ei = k=1
ek + xji − N i δi
complex tall builds. Though numerous procedures have been developed j=1

to predict the column shortening, especially for RC tall buildings (e.g.,

procedures suggested in Fintel et al., 1987, Fan et al., 2013, American
Concrete Institute, 1992, Elnimeiri and Patel, 1997, Jeong and Kim
2004, Kim and Shin, 2011, Kim et al., 2012a, Kim et al., 2012b, Mor­
agaspitiya et al., 2010, Samarakkody et al., 2017), the analysis of DCS
still lacks accuracy compared to the on-site monitoring data due to the
inaccurate prediction of time-dependent deformation such as creep and
shrinkage (Zou et al., 2019). Various uncertainties are associated with
the column shortening of a building (Song and Yoon, 2006). For
example, numerical and experimental studies show that the variation of
ambient humidity has a significant influence on shrinkage and creep
(Zou et al., 2014, Wang et al., 2020, Gao et al., 2020). On the other hand,
the applied compensation amounts in practice may not be the same as
the computed values due to round-off and construction errors. The
existing compensation methods like OC, MAC, and MOC only deal with
deterministic values of predicted DCS as well as correction amount.
There is a dearth of work considering uncertainties for the compensation
of DCS.
This paper proposes an efficient procedure for obtaining the optimal
compensation of DCS in tall buildings. Firstly, the moving compensation
optimization (MCO) is introduced, in which the optimal compensation
solution is derived stepwise. The optimization objective is to minimize
the number of compensation groups while maintaining an allowable
compensation error at each floor level. Two optimal compensation
problems are presented, including the deterministic optimal compen­
sation (DOC) and the reliability-based optimal compensation (ROC). Fig. 1. Illustration of the grouping correction strategy.
Then, an optimizer based on differential evolution (DE) (Storn and Price,

2
H.-A. Pham et al. Expert Systems With Applications 169 (2021) 114531

∑ ⃒ ⃒
where ei is the sum compensation error; ek is the compensation error ⃒ ⃒
gj = ⃒dji ⃒ − θi (7b)
∑ k ( )
of the k-th group below the i-th group, i.e., ek = Nj=1 xkj − δk .
Therefore, the objective function of the compensation strategy is where Pj is the predefined safety probability for the slab tilt at the j-th
formulated in the following form: floor level; gj is the j-th constraint function.
( ) ⃒∑ ⃒
⃒ ⃒
Minimizef N i , δi = − N i + wi × ⃒ ei ⃒ (3) 3. Handling probabilistic constraints using first-order reliability
method
where wi (wi > 0) is a weighted factor. With the defined objective
function, the number of floors gathered in the i-th group is maximized, In this study, for simplicity, differential column shortenings, as well
while the sum compensation error is maintained under control. as correction amounts, are assumed as normally distributed and inde­
pendent uncertainties. Therefore, gj is also normally distributed. Using
2.2. Constraints on slab tilt the first-order reliability method (FORM), Eq. (7a) can be transformed
into the following forms:
As mentioned earlier, differential shortening can cause unwanted
slopes to floors. Therefore, constraints on the compensation error at gj + βj σgj ≤ 0, j = 1, ⋯, N i (8)
floor level need to be placed to control the slab tilt caused by DCS. The
where gj and σgj are the mean and standard deviation of gj , respec­
followings describe these constraints.
The compensation error at the j-th floor level of the i-th group, or the tively; βj is the corresponding reliability index. The value of βj is
( )
accumulated compensation error (ACE), is the cumulative difference calculated as βj = Φ− 1 Pj , where Φ− 1 is the inverse of the standard
between the correction values and the anticipated differential shorten­ normal density.
ings. This error is determined by Notable that gj is a linear function of the anticipated differential
j
shortenings and the correction amounts. Thus, we have
∑i− ∑ ( )
(4)
1 ⃒
dji = ek + xil − δi , j = 1, ⋯, N i ⃒∑i− 1 ∑j ( ) ⃒⃒
k=1 ⃒ i ⃒
l=1 gj = ⃒ k=1 ek + xil − δ ⃒ − θi (9)
⃒ l=1
⃒
where dij is the ACE at the j-th floor level of the i-th group. As suggested
( )1/2
by Park et al. (2013), the compensation error at a floor level should be ∑
i− 1 j (
∑ )
restricted by a tolerance to control the slab tilt, i.e. σ gj = σ 2ek + σ 2xi + σ2δi (10)
l
k=1 l=1
⃒ ⃒
⃒ i⃒
⃒dj ⃒ ≤ θi , j = 1, ⋯, N i (5) In Eq. (9), x and δ denote the mean values of the anticipated differ­
ential shortening and the correction amount, respectively; σ denotes
where θi is a predefined tolerance for compensation error. standard deviation; ek and σ 2ek are determined by
By adopting the constraints of Eq. (5), the optimal compensation
solution, including the floors for each compensation group (Ni ) together Nk (
∑ )
(11)
k
ek = xkj − δ
with the corresponding compensation value (δi ), will be determined by j=1
solving a series of constrained optimization problems stepwise, from
lower floors to upper floors. The procedure of this so-called moving Nk (
∑ )
compensation optimization (MCO) is: σ 2ek = σ 2xk + σ2δk (12)
j
j=1

• Obtain the differential shortening profile of vertical elements and set With predefined reliability indices βj , the optimal compensation so­
the error limit, θi ;
lution will be determined by solving a sequence of the following reli­
• At the i-th step (i starts from 1), solve the constrained optimization
ability constrained optimization problems:
problem, with the objective function defined in Eq. (3) and the
⃒ ⃒
constraints determined by Eq. (5), to obtain the optimal values Ni ( i)
⃒∑i− 1
⃒ ∑Ni ⃒
i⃒
and δi , for the i-th group; Minimize f N i , δ = − N i + wi × ⃒ k=1 ek + xil − N i δ ⃒ (13)
⃒ ⃒
• Set i = i + 1, and move to the next group.
j=1

s. t.
It is important to note that, at each step, the value of Ni cannot
cj ≤ 0, j = 1, ⋯, N i (14a)
exceed the number of the remaining floors, Nimax , that are not to be
grouped. It means that Ni must satisfy Eq. (6) ⃒
⃒∑i− 1 j ( ) ⃒⃒ (
j (
)
) 1/2
⃒ ∑ i ⃒
∑
i− 1 ∑
i 2 2 2
∑i− 1 cj = ⃒ k=1 ek + xl − δ ⃒ + βj σ ek + σ xi + σ δi − θi ,
1 ≤ N i ≤ Nmax
i
= NF − k=1
Nk (6) ⃒ l=1
⃒ k=1 l=1
l

2.3. Probabilistic constraints
As aforementioned, the anticipated axial shortenings of vertical
members are uncertain owing to various uncertainties associated with
the input parameters used for calculating them. Moreover, the actual
correction amounts applied to the vertical members during the
compensation process may not be the same as the computed values due
to round-off and construction errors. Therefore, the constraints for ACE
presented in Section 2.2 are formulated in terms of probabilistic con­
ditions to account for these issues as
[ ]
P gj ≤ 0 ≥ Pj , j = 1, ⋯, N i (7a)
(14b)
where ek and σ 2ek are determined by Eq. (11) and Eq. (12), respectively. It
is notable that the established optimization problem has only two design
i
variables, Ni and δ , where Ni is an integer variable.
4. Differential evolution-based optimizer
The MCO problem presented in Section 3 possesses a multi-modal
objective function and non-linear constraints. Moreover, the number
of constraints is not predefined since the floors in the group are un­
known. Due to these reasons, MCO is best tackled by direct search

3
H.-A. Pham et al.
optimization approaches.
Among various direct search techniques, differential evolution (DE)
(Storn and Price, 1997) is one of the most popular population-based
optimization methods. Since DE has a simple structure, few control
parameters, and can be implemented easily, it has gained extensive
applications in various structural optimization problems (Kitayama
et al., 2011, Das et al., 2016, Pham, 2016a, Pham, 2016b, Truong and
Kim, 2018, Anh and Duong, 2019, Ha et al., 2020). Therefore, in this
study, DE is adopted to develop a practical optimizer for searching the
solution of the presented MCO problem.
4.1. Basic of DE
In searching for the optimal solution of an optimization problem, DE
utilizes a population of P candidate solutions. Let ap =
{ }
ap1 , ap2 , ⋯, apD ,p = 1, ⋯, P, is the p-th candidate solution (or indi­
vidual) in the population of the current generation, where ap1 , ap2 , ⋯,
apD are the D design variables of the problem.
Corresponding to ap , a trial solution cp is created by the ‘mutation’
and ‘crossover’ operators as follows:
• Mutation is applied to generate a mutant vector bp . Some conven­
tional mutation schemes are:
− DE/rand/1 : bp = al + F∙(am − an ) (15a)
− DE/best/1 : bp = abest + F∙(am − an ) (15b)
( )
- DE/current-to-best/1: bp = ap + F∙ abest − ap + F∙(am − an )(15c)
where al , am and an are three randomly selected individuals in the
population; abest is the best solutions of the current population; F is a
positive real number, whose value is often predefined in the interval [0,
1].
• Crossover is conducted to produce the trial solution cp as:
{ 4.3. Integer variable and bound constraint handling
bpj if(rand[0, 1] ≤ Cr )orIr = j
cpj = , j = 1, ⋯, D (16)
apj otherwise
where Ir is a random integer in the interval [1, D]; Cr is a predefined
crossover rate with its value in the interval [0,1].
Then, cp is compared with ap , and the better one will become a new
candidate in the population of the next generation. The updated popu­
lation, therefore, consists of only good candidate solutions. The search
process stops when a termination criterion is satisfied. In this study, the
searching process is terminated if the generations exceed a predefined
maximum number of generation Tmax , or if the objective value cannot be
improved in twenty subsequent generations.
4.2. Modification in mutation
It is well known that DE’s efficiency is largely dependent on the
mutation strategy. For instance, the ‘DE/rand/1’ scheme favors explo­
ration; however, it has weak exploitation ability and low convergence
speed. By contrast, the ‘DE/best/1’ or ‘DE/current-to-best/1’ scheme
favors exploitation with fast convergence speed, but they can lose
population diversity quickly and may be trapped in a local optimum in
multi-modal optimization problems. To achieve a good trade-off be­
tween exploration and exploitation, using multiple mutation operators
is often recommended (Mallipeddi et al., 2011, Wang et al., 2011, Gong
et al., 2010, Takahama and Sakai, 2012, Xiang et al., 2015, Kushida
et al., 2015, Wu et al., 2016, Ho-Huu et al., 2016).
In the present study, a simply adaptive mutation strategy is intro­
duced for generating new individuals. The proposed mutation strategy
operates as
4
Expert Systems With Applications 169 (2021) 114531
{
cp = ( al + r∙(a)m − an ) if (rand[0, 1] ≤ s)
(17)
ap + r∙ abest − ap + r∙(am − an ) if (rand[0, 1] > s)
where s is the parameter controlling the selection of mutation operator; r
is a vector of D uniform random numbers in the interval [0,1].
The value of s is of vital importance to secure a balance between
exploration ability and exploitation ability. Here, s is adapted with the
change of the population diversity during the evolution as follows.
DI t
s= (18)
DI 0
where DIt is a diversity index that measures the population distribution
at the t-th generation; DI0 is the diversity index of the initial population.
The diversity index is computed as (Pham, 2016a)
⎡ ⎛ ⎞2 ⎤1/2
1∑ ∑ ∑
P D P
a − a ⎠ ⎦ ; aj = 1 (19)
⎣ ⎝ pj j
DI t = apj
P p=1 j=1 auj − alj P p=1
where aj is the mean of the j-th design variable at the t-th generation;
alj and auj are the lower bound and the upper bound of the j-th design
variable, respectively. By using the proposed adjustment, larger values
of s are expected in the earlier generations, so that ‘DE/rand/1’ is used
more frequently to favor exploration, and smaller values of s are ob­
tained in later generations to enhance exploitation by ‘DE/current-to-
best/1’.
In Eq. (16), the scaling factor for creating each component of the
mutant vector is generated randomly instead of a constant value pre­
defined as in the classical DE. Random scaling factors enable both
exploitation (by small value) and exploration (by large value)
throughout the search process. Moreover, the ‘crossover’ step is omitted
in producing a trial solution. The proposed DE is, therefore, a parameter-
free algorithm, which may ease its application by structural engineers.
The mutation operators in Eq. (17) generally produce rational
numbers. Integer value of the variable Ni is obtained simply by the
rounding technique. Moreover, if the generated value of a design vari­
able violates its bound constraint, it will be set equal to the violated
bound.
4.4. Comparison of solutions with constraints
The presented compensation optimization problem consists Ni con­
straints
cj ≤ 0, j = 1, ⋯, N i (20)
where cj is the j-th constraint function defined by Eq. (14b). In this study,
the measure of constraint violation of a solution is calculated as
{ }
{ }
C = max max 0, cj , j = 1, ⋯, N i (21)
j
Each of the candidate solutions need to be assessed in the selection
process by its corresponding objective value and constraint violation.
Deb’s rules (Deb, 2000) are applied in the proposed DE to compare two
solutions as follows:
• If both solutions are feasible (C = 0) or have equal constraint
violation measure, the better solution is the one having smaller
objective function value.
• If both solutions are infeasible (C > 0), the better solution is the one
having smaller constraint violation measure.
• If one of the two solutions is feasible while the other is not, the
feasible one is the better.
H.-A. Pham et al. Expert Systems With Applications 169 (2021) 114531

5. Implementation of MCO Table 1

Control parameters for DE.
The stepwise procedure for the implementation of MCO is given in Parameter DE/rand/1 Modified DE
this section.
Population size P 50 50
Step 0: Define the compensation problem. Scaling factor F 0.8 rand[0,1]
Obtain the DCS data of the vertical elements of the building, Crossover rate Cr 0.9 N/A
including mean values and standard deviations. At the beginning, these Max. generation Tmax 100 100
data are predicted using probabilistic analysis of DCS (Song and Yoon,
2006). During the construction, accurate DCS should be updated with
best solution.
on-site monitoring data. If only the mean values are available, the
Repeat Step 3 until the number of generations exceeds Tmax , or if the
standard deviation values can be assumed based on engineer’s
smallest objective value cannot be improved in twenty subsequent
experiences.
generations.
Predefine the error limit (θi ) and the reliability index (β).
The best individual in the final population becomes the compensa­
Set the group indicator i = 1.
tion solution of the i-th group.
Step 1: Initialize the optimization parameters.
Step 4: Move to the next group.
Predefine the size of the candidate population (P), the maximum ∑i k
i Stop if no more floor remains, i.e. NF − k=1 N = 0; otherwise, in­
generation (Tmax ), and the bounds of the design variables, i.e. Nmax and
i crease i = i + 1 and repeat from Step 1.
δmax , where Nmax is the number of the remaining floors that are not to be
grouped, and δmax are the upper limit for the compensation amount.
6. Applications
Step 2: Generate the initial population.
{ }
The initial population of candidate solutions ap = Nip , δip ,p = 1,⋯, Two tall building examples, including a 70-story building in Fintel
P, is generated randomly as: et al. (1987) and a practical 72-story building in Hanoi, are considered
[ ( )] for illustrating the proposed MCO procedure. The first example serves to
Npi = round 1 + rand[0, 1] Nimax − 1 (22) show the advantage of MCO in solving the DOC problem. The other
example demonstrates the applicability of MCO in the ROC problem.
δip = rand[0, 1]δmax (23)

For each candidate solution ap , the corresponding objective function
value fap is calculated according to Eq. (13), and the corresponding
constraint violation Cap is calculated by Eq. (21).
Compute the diversity index of the initial population by Eq. (19).
The best candidate solution (abest ) is sought in the population by
applying the comparison rules presented in Section 4.4.
Step 3: Generate trial solutions.
Corresponding to each ap in the population of the current generation,
generate a trial solution cp by Eq. (17). Integer handling and bound
constraint handling presented in Section 4.3 are applied to the generated
trial solution. The objective value fcp and the constraint violation Ccp of
cp are then computed.
Compare cp with ap using the Deb’s rules presented in Section 4.4.
Accept cp for the next generation if it is better than ap .
Compute the diversity index of the new population and update the
6.1. DOC problem
The 70-story building was formerly considered by Park (2003) and
Park et al. (2013) to examine their compensation methods, including OC
and MAC. Thus, in this investigation, MCO is performed to derive the
compensation solution for the DOC problem, and the results are
compared with those of OC and MAC. Fig. 2 illustrates half of the typical
layout of the building.
The anticipated DCS after slab installation between the inner wall
and outer column are given in Park (2003). The predicted DCS,
including the elastic shortening and the creep and shrinkage shorten­
ings, was based on the procedures proposed by Fintel et al. (1987) and
an estimated construction sequence of 7 days per floor. These data are
assumed exact, and uncertainty is not considered. A tolerance of 0.2 (in.)
for ACE is assumed (Park, 2003).
The proposed MCO procedure is applied to seek the optimal solution

Fig. 2. Half of the typical floor layout of the 70-story building (Fintel
et al. 1987).

Fig. 3. Convergence of the objective function value by DOC for the 1st group.

5
H.-A. Pham et al. Expert Systems With Applications 169 (2021) 114531

Table 2
Compensation solutions by OC, MAC, and DOC for the 70-story building with
compensation error limit of 0.2 (in.)
OC (Park, 2003) This study (MAC) This study (DOC)

i Ni δi (in.) i Ni δi (in.) i Ni δi (in.)

1 1 0.045 1 6 0.1293 1 8 0.1442

2 2 0.096 2 6 0.3336 2 10 0.4559
3 9 0.283 3 9 0.5484 3 8 0.7219
4 11 0.579 4 6 0.7954 4 16 1.0173
5 11 0.940 5 11 1.0207 5 7 1.0468
6 22 0.972 6 10 1.0300 6 12 0.7961
7 3 0.769 7 11 0.8319 7 6 0.4393
8 5 0.589 8 6 0.5703 8 3 0.1226
9 5 0.303 9 4 0.2607
10 1 0.021 10 1 0.0210

Fig. 5. The ACE by OC, MAC, and DOC for the 70-story building with
compensation error limit of 0.2 (in.)

Table 3
Compensation solutions by MAC and DOC for the 70-story building with
compensation error limit of 0.96 (in.)
This study (MAC) This study (DOC)

i Ni δi (in.) i Ni δi (in.)

1 14 0.2672 1 18 0.2829
2 14 0.6910 2 27 0.9276
3 26 0.9907 3 13 1.0156
4 13 0.6238 4 12 0.3591
5 3 0.1226
Fig. 4. Compensation curves by OC, MAC, and DOC for the 70-story building
with compensation error limit of 0.2 (in.)
ACE by MAC and DOC with the error limit of 0.96 (in.), and that by OC
with the error limit of 0.2 (in.). In summary, the proposed MCO pro­
cedure is beneficial in reducing the necessary groups for the compen­
sation of the building.
for the compensation of the building. Both the conventional DE using
‘DE/rand/1’ and the modified DE are utilized in this investigation. The
6.2. ROC problem
parameter setting for DE is given in Table 1. These parameter values are
chosen based on a preliminary investigation to obtain good performance
The second example is a ROC problem of the compensation of DCS
of DE. Each algorithm performs twenty independent runs to obtain
for the Lotte Center Hanoi building. This is one of the tallest RC build­
statistical results. It is found that both ‘DE/rand/1’ and the modified DE
ings in Vietnam, with a height of 285.25 m, and 72 floors (Fig. 8). The
end with the same result in all runs. Fig. 3 depicts the averaged
building was completed for hotel, residence, office, and headquarter
convergence curves of DOC performed by the two algorithms. It is
store. Fig. 9 displays the typical layout of the building given in MIDAS IT
shown that the modified DE converses faster than ‘DE/rand/1’ does. The
(2011).
time consumed by both algorithms is only some seconds on a personal
The controlling of DCS of this tall building was considered at the
computer with 2 GB RAM, and a dual-core CPU of 2.5 GHz.
design stage for the safety and serviceability of the structure. The pre­
Table 2, Figs. 4 and 5 compare the compensation solution of DOC
liminary analysis was carried out to grasp the size of future column
with that of OC using SA (Park, 2003) and MAC. From the results in
shortenings and set a management plan based on the anticipated
Table 2 and Fig. 4, it is shown that DOC can derive a fewer number of
shortenings (MIDAS IT, 2011). The shortening of the structure was
groups compared with OC and MAC. In this investigation, the number of
estimated using ACI 209 and PCA. The analysis was conducted under the
compensation groups by DOC is eight, whereas that by OC and MAC is
assumption of various environmental factors at the preliminary analysis
ten. It is seen that both MAC and DOC control the ACE at every floor
stage. However, material tests (compressive strength and elastic
level within the limit of 0.2 (in.). The largest ACE by MAC and DOC is
modulus tests, creep tests, and shrinkage tests) were conducted to obtain
0.19 (in.) and 0.20 (in.), respectively. OC, however, gives a maximum
specific data for the analysis to minimize the error.
error of 0.96 (in.) on the 47th floor, which exceeds the allowable
According to the preliminary analysis in MIDAS IT (2011), there
margin.
were excessive differential shortenings between the outer columns and
By adopting the limit of 0.96 (in.), MAC and DOC can further reduce
the inner core-wall at some locations. Therefore, compensation was
the compensation groups. As shown in Table 3 and Fig. 6, MAC and DOC
suggested to conduct during the construction period by extending the
obtain five and four compensation groups, respectively. Fig. 7 shows the
column length at some floor levels with an equal amount. The suggested

6
H.-A. Pham et al.
Fig. 6. Compensation curves by OC with 0.2 (in.) limit, and MAC and DOC with
0.96 (in.) limit.
Fig. 7. The ACE by OC with 0.2 (in.) limit, and MAC and DOC with 0.96
(in.) limit.
compensation solution is simple, but it is not optimal. Furthermore,
there would be a possibility of changes in the column shortening
occurring in the actual building due to many factors of environment and
materials.
Considering the uncertainty of the shortening, ROC is employed to
obtain the optimal compensation solution for the building. The location
to be examined is Line15, where large excessive deformation angles
occur, according to the preliminary analysis results in MIDAS IT (2011).
The amounts of DCS at Line15 are provided in the structural analysis
report of the consultant (MIDAS IT, 2011). These data are considered as
the mean values of the differential shortenings, and they are given in
Table 4. It is supposed that randomness is associated with both the
differential shortenings and the compensation amounts. All random
quantities are assumed normally distributed and uncorrelated. More­
over, the calculated correction amounts will be rounded to millimeters.
As required by the technical specification, the difference of short­
ening between column C18 and the core-wall W12 of Line15 shall not
exceed an allowable value of L/240 (ca. 20 mm), i.e., θi = 20mm. The
7
Expert Systems With Applications 169 (2021) 114531
Fig. 8. Perspective view of Lotte Ceter Hanoi (MIDAS IT, 2011).
probability of safety is taken as 0.99, i.e., the desirable reliability index
is 2.3263. Different uncertainty levels are considered in the analysis.
Table 5 presents the computed number of floors and the required
correction amounts by ROC corresponding to three different uncertainty
levels, with the coefficient of variation (CV) of 0.5%, 1%, and 2%. The
corresponding compensation curves are depicted in Fig. 10. The results
show that the compensation solution corresponding to the small level of
uncertainty (CV = 0.5%) is the same as that of the deterministic case.
When the CV value is larger, i.e., the level of uncertainty is higher, the
number of compensation groups increases. Fig. 11 shows the mean
values of accumulated compensation error at floor level controlled by
ROC. It is shown that when a higher uncertainty level is involved, ROC
will maintain a lower magnitude of the difference between predicted
differential shortening and the correction amount to assure the desired
reliability.
Monte-Carlo simulations (MCS) with 100,000 samples are conducted
to verify the obtained compensation solutions. The safety probability of
Eq. (5) is computed as:
[⃒ ⃒ ] Ns
⃒ ⃒
P ⃒dji ⃒ ≤ θi = (22)
100000
where Ns is the number of the samples that satisfy Eq. (5). Table 6 lists
the computed values of the safety probability and the corresponding
reliability index. The obtained results are higher than the desired values.
It means that the derived compensation solutions by ROC are reliable.
7. Conclusions
A novel compensation optimization for controlling DCS, named
MCO, has been established in this study. By formulating the compen­
sation problem stepwise, MCO can derive the compensation solution,
including the number of compensation groups, the number of floors for
each group together with the corresponding correction amount in a
H.-A. Pham et al. Expert Systems With Applications 169 (2021) 114531

Fig. 9. Typical floor plan ofLotte Center Hanoi structure (MIDAS IT, 2011).

systematic way efficiently. Both the deterministic optimal compensation
(DOC) and the reliability-based optimal compensation (ROC) have been
considered. An efficient DE-based optimizer has been developed for
MCO. The new method has been examined for the compensation of two
tall buildings. In the case of DOC, MCO can find a smaller number of
compensation groups, compared with two existing methods under the
same constraint on the slab tilt. When uncertainty is considered, i.e.
ROC, MCO can derive reliable compensation solutions. Another
advantage of MCO is that it requires a very low computational cost.
Therefore, MCO provides a practical means to obtain the optimal solu­
tion for controlling DCS in tall buildings.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Hoang-Anh Pham: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing -
original draft, Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Project admin­
istration. Duc-Xuan Nguyen: Methodology, Software, Formal analysis,
Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Viet-Hung Truong:
Software, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Formal
analysis, Visualization, Resources, Supervision.

Table 4
Differential shortenings (DS) at Line15 of Lotte Center Hanoi building.
Floor DS (mm) Floor DS (mm) Floor DS (mm) Floor DS (mm) Floor DS (mm)

1 0 15 11.4 29 19.6 43 22.8 57 32.9

2 0.5 16 12.1 30 20.3 44 23.7 58 33.2
3 1.0 17 12.7 31 20.9 45 24.6 59 33.4
4 1.7 18 13.2 32 21.5 46 25.4 60 33.5
5 2.6 19 13.8 33 22.0 47 26.5 61 33.5
6 3.8 20 14.3 34 22.4 48 27.6 62 33.3
7 5.2 21 14.7 35 22.9 49 28.5 63 33.0
8 6.3 22 15.5 36 22.4 50 29.4 64 32.7
9 6.9 23 16.1 37 22.2 51 30.2 65 32.3
10 7.9 24 16.8 38 21.0 52 30.9 66 31.7
11 8.8 25 17.4 39 20.3 53 31.4 67 30.8
12 9.8 26 17.9 40 19.7 54 31.9 68 29.9
13 10.1 27 18.4 41 20.9 55 32.3 69 28.9
14 10.7 28 18.9 42 21.8 56 32.5 70 27.3

Table 5
Compensation solutions by ROC corresponding to different levels of uncertainty.
Deterministic CV = 0.5% CV = 1% CV = 2%

i Ni δi (mm) i Ni δi (mm) i Ni δi (mm) i Ni δi (mm)

1 11 4 1 11 4 1 11 4 1 11 4
2 16 14 2 16 14 2 16 14 2 12 13
3 20 22 3 20 22 3 20 22 3 18 20
4 25 31 4 25 31 4 19 32 4 9 26
5 5 28 5 17 32
6 1 24 6 3 31
7 2 24

8
H.-A. Pham et al. Expert Systems With Applications 169 (2021) 114531

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