  In this paper we tackle a problem of optimal design and location of Tuned
Mass Dampers (TMDs) for structures subjected to earthquake ground motions,
using a novel meta-heuristic algorithm. Specifically, the Coral Reefs
Optimization (CRO) with Substrate Layer (CRO-SL) is proposed as a competitive
co-evolution algorithm with different exploration procedures within a single
population of solutions. The proposed approach is able to solve the TMD design
and location problem, by exploiting the combination of different types of
searching mechanisms. This promotes a powerful evolutionary-like algorithm for
optimization problems, which is shown to be very effective in this particular
problem of TMDs tuning. The proposed algorithm's performance has been evaluated
and compared with several reference algorithms in two building models with two
and four floors, respectively.
