The applicability of extended stiffened end plate (ESEP) connections used as link‐to‐column connections in eccentrically braced frames (EBFs) with long (flexural yielding) links is examined in this paper. A finite element method (FEM) is used for this purpose, based on a validated parametric FE benchmark. Analysing the numerical model of an ESEP connection designed to the recent seismic design rules for special moment frames reveals that the link‐to‐column connections of EBFs sustain more severe conditions than the moment connections of moment‐resisting systems. The design approach implemented is examined and the results are discussed. The results demonstrate that ESEP connections can be used as a successful alternative for the link‐to‐column connections of EBFs and the system with this type of connection can achieve the required rotations for long or flexural links.

Tuned liquid column damper (TLCD) has been used extensively to improve the seismic behavior of structures, and different methods have been proposed for optimal design of TLCDs on linear structures. For improving the effectiveness of TLCDs, multiple tuned liquid column dampers (MTLCDs) have been proposed, and each TLCD has different dynamic parameters. In this paper designing optimal MTLCDs and assessment of its effectiveness in mitigating the response of structures under earthquake excitations have been studied. The parameters of TLCDs have been determined based on minimizing the maximum displacement of structure through solving an optimization problem. Genetic algorithm (GA) has been used for solving the optimization problem. For illustration, the method has been used for designing optimal MTLCDs for a ten-storey linear shear frame subjected to a white noise excitation. According to the results of numerical simulations it could be said that the proposed method for designing optimal MTLCDs has been effective regarding the simplicity and convergence behavior of the method. Based on designing MTLCDs for different values of MTLCDs total mass ratio, it has been concluded that MTLCDs total mass affects significantly the performance of MTMDs where its increasing has led to improve MTLCDs performance. Also, testing the optimal MTLCDs structure under different testing excitations has shown that the performance of MTLCDs depends on the characteristics of earthquakes.