Based on the value of the Lagrange multiplier and the degree of constraint activeness, a new update rule is proposed for penalty parameters of the ALM method. The theoretical exposition of this suggested update rule is presented by using the algorithmic interpretation and the geometric interpretation of the augmented Lagrangian. This interpretation shows that the penalty parameters can effect the performance of the ALM method. Also, it offers a lower limit on the penalty parameters that makes the augmented Lagrangian to be bounded. This lower limit forms the backbone of the proposed update rule. To investigate the numerical performance of the update rule, it is embedded in our ALM based dynamic response optimizer, and the optimizer is applied to solve six typical dynamic response optimization problems. Our optimization results are compared with those obtained by employing three conventional update rules used in the literature, which shows that the suggested update rule is more efficient and more stable than the conventional ones.