• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.183-192
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• 2017

Seismic pounding between adjacent buildings with inadequate separation and different dynamic characteristics can cause severe damage to the colliding buildings. Efficient estimation of the maximum pounding force is required to control the extent of damage in adjacent structures or develop an appropriate mitigation method. In this paper, an analytical approach on the basis of statistical relations is presented for approximate computation of extreme value of pounding force between two adjacent structures with equal or unequal heights subjected to stationary and non-stationary excitations. The nonlinearity of adjacent structures is considered using Bouc-Wen model of hysteresis and the pounding effect is simulated by applying the nonlinear viscoelastic model. It is shown that the proposed approach can significantly save computational costs by obviating the need for performing dynamic analysis. To assess the reliability and accuracy of the proposed approach, the results are compared with those obtained from nonlinear dynamic analysis.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.77 no.2
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• pp.293-304
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• 2021

Structural failure due to seismic pounding between two adjacent buildings is one of the major concerns in the context of structural damage. Pounding between adjacent structures is a commonly observed phenomenon during major earthquakes. When modelling the structural response, stiffness of impact spring elements is considered to be one of the most important parameters when the impact force during collision of adjacent buildings is calculated. Determining valid and realistic stiffness values is essential in numerical simulations of pounding forces between adjacent buildings in order to achieve reasonable results. Several impact model stiffness values have been presented by various researchers to simulate pounding forces between adjacent structures. These values were mathematically calculated or estimated. In this study, a linear spring impact element model is used to simulate the pounding forces between two adjacent structures. An experimental model reported in literature was adopted to investigate the effect of different impact element stiffness k on the force intensity and number of impacts simulated by Finite Element (FE) analysis. Several numerical analyses have been conducted using SAP2000 and the collected results were used for further mathematical evaluations. The results of this study concluded the major factors that may actualise the stiffness value for impact element models. The number of impacts and the maximum impact force were found to be the core concept for finding the optimal range of stiffness values. For the experimental model investigated, the range of optimal stiffness values has also been presented and discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.503-526
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• 2012

Pounding between closely located adjacent buildings is a serious issue of dense cities in the earthquake prone areas. Seismic responses of adjacent buildings subjected to earthquake induced pounding are numerically studied in this paper. The adjacent buildings are modeled as the lumped mass shear buildings subjected to earthquake acceleration and the pounding forces are modeled as the Kelvin contact force model. The Kelvin model is activated when the separation gap is closed and the buildings pound together. Characteristics of the Kelvin model are extensively explored and a new procedure is proposed to determine its stiffness. The developed model is solved numerically and a SDOF pounding case as well as a MDOF pounding case of multistory adjacent buildings are elaborated and discussed. Effects of different separation gaps, building heights and earthquake excitations on the seismic responses of adjacent buildings are obtained. Results show that the seismic responses of adjacent buildings are affected negatively by the pounding. More stories pound together and pounding is more intense if the separation gap is smaller. When the height of buildings differs significantly, the taller building is almost unaffected while the shorter building is affected detrimentally. Finally, the buildings should be analyzed case by case considering the potential earthquake excitation in the area.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.573-593
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• 2014

Pounding between adjacent buildings is a significant challenge in metropolitan areas because buildings of different heights collide during earthquake excitations due to varying dynamic properties and narrow separation gaps. The seismic responses of adjacent buildings of varying height, coupled through soil subjected to earthquake-induced pounding, are evaluated in this paper. The lumped mass model is used to simulate the buildings and soil, while the linear visco-elastic contact force model is used to simulate pounding forces. The results indicate while the taller building is almost unaffected when the shorter building is very short, it suffers more from pounding with increasing height of the shorter building. The shorter building suffers more from the pounding with decreasing height and when its height differs substantially from that of the taller building. The minimum required separation gap to prevent pounding is increased with increasing height of the shorter building until the buildings become almost in-phase. Considering the soil effect; pounding forces are reduced, displacements and story shears are increased after pounding, and also, minimum separation gap required to prevent pounding is increased.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.229-239
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• 2018

Under strong ground motion, pounding can be caused because of the different dynamic properties between two adjacent buildings. Using different structural systems in two adjacent structures makes a difference in the lateral stiffness and thus changes the pounding force between them. In this paper, the effect of the structural system of adjacent buildings on the amount of force applied by pounding effects has been investigated. Moment resisting frame systems (MRFs), lateral X-bracing system (LBS), shear wall system (SWS) and dual system (DS) have been investigated. Four different cases has been modelled using finite element (FE) method. The number of stories of the two adjacent buildings is different in each case: case 1 with 6 and 4 stories, case 2 with 9 and 6 stories, case 3 with 15 and 6 stories and case 4 with 10 and 10 stories. The structures have been modelled three-dimensionally. Non-linear time history analysis has been done on the structures using the finite element software SAP2000. In order to model pounding effects, the non-linear gap elements have been used.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.2
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• pp.153-166
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• 2022

Structural pounding due to strong seismic excitations can result in severe damage or even collapse of colliding structures. Many researchers focused on studying the mutual pounding between two adjacent structures while very few researches were concerned with the pounding of a series of structures. This paper aims to study the pounding effect on a series of four buildings having different natural frequencies. The paper also investigates the effect of different arrangements of the four buildings on their pounding response. For this, a mathematical model was constructed using Matlab code where, pounding was modeled using a contact force-based approach. A Non-Linear viscoelastic (Hertzdamp) contact element was used and activated only during the approach period of collision. The mathematical model was validated by comparing its prediction versus experimental results on three adjacent buildings. Then the model was used to study the pounding between four adjacent structures arranged in different sequences according to their natural frequencies. The results revealed that increasing the gap distance generally led to decrease the peak responses of the towers. Such response is somehow different from that predicted earlier by the authors for the case of three adjacent buildings. Moreover, the arrangement of towers has a significant effect on their pounding response. Significant difference between the natural frequencies of adjacent structures increases the pounding forces especially when the more flexible buildings are located at the outer edge of the series. The study points out the need for further researches on buildings in series to gain a better understanding of such complex phenomena.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.289-304
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• 2022

During strong ground motions, adjacent structures with insufficient separation distances collide with each other causing considerable architectural and structural damage or collapse of the whole structure. Generally, existing design procedures for determining the separation distance between adjacent buildings subjected to structural pounding are based on approximations of the buildings' peak relative displacement. These procedures are based on unknown safety levels. This paper attempts to evaluate the influence of foundation flexibility on the structural seismic response by considering the variability in the system and uncertainties in the ground motion characteristics through comprehensive numerical simulations. Actually, the aim of this study is to evaluate the influence of foundation flexibility on probabilistic evaluation of structural pounding. A Hertz-damp pounding force model has been considered in order to effectively capture impact forces during collisions. In total, 5.25 million time-history analyses were performed over the adopted models using an ensemble of 25 ground motions as seismic input within OpenSees software. The results of the study indicate that the soil-structure interaction significantly influences the pounding-involved responses of adjacent structures during earthquakes and generally increases the pounding probability.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.171-184
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• 2020

The potential of using the roof water tanks as a mitigation measure to minimize the required separation gap and induced pounding forces due to collisions is investigated. The investigation is carried out using nonlinear dynamic analysis for two adjacent 3-story buildings with different dynamic characteristics under two real earthquake motions. For such analysis, nonlinear viscoelastic model is used to simulate forces due to impact. The sloshing force due to water movement is modelled in terms of width of the water tank and the instantaneous wave heights at the end wall. The effect of roof water tanks on the story's responses, separation gap, and magnitude and number of induced pounding forces are investigated. The influence of structural stiffness and storey mass are investigated as well. It is found that pounding causes instantaneous acceleration pulses in the colliding buildings, but the existence of roof water tanks eliminates such acceleration pulses. At the same time the water tanks effectively reduce the number of collisions as well as the magnitude of the induced impact forces. Moreover, buildings without constructed water tanks require wider separation gap to prevent pounding as compared to those with water tanks attached to top floor under seismic excitations.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.289-308
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• 2018

Numerous urban seismic vulnerability studies have recognized pounding as one of the main risks due to the restricted separation distance between neighboring structures. The pounding effects on the adjacent buildings could extend from slight non-structural to serious structural damage that could even head to a total collapse of buildings. Therefore, an assessment of the seismic pounding hazard to the adjacent buildings is superficial in future building code calibrations. Thus, this study targets are to draw useful recommendations and set up guidelines for potential pounding damage evaluation for code calibration through a numerical simulation approach for the evaluation of the pounding risks on adjacent buildings. A numerical simulation is formulated to estimate the seismic pounding effects on the seismic response demands of adjacent buildings for different design parameters that include: number of stories, separation distances; alignment configurations, and then compared with nominal model without pounding. Based on the obtained results, it has been concluded that the severity of the pounding effects depends on the dynamic characteristics of the adjacent buildings and the input excitation characteristics, and whether the building is exposed to one or two-sided impacts. Seismic pounding among adjacent buildings produces greater acceleration and shear force response demands at different story levels compared to the no pounding case response demands.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.129-138
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• 2022

One of the objectives to prevent building pounding between two adjacentstructures is to considerseparation distance or decrease relative displacement during seismic excitation. Although the majority of building codes around the world have basically suggested some equations or approximately recommended various distances between structuresto avoid pounding hazard, but a lot of reportsin zone of pounding have obviously shown thatsafety situation or economic consideration are not always provided due to the collisions between buildings and the cost of land, respectively. For this purpose, a dynamic MDOF model by having base isolation system is numerically considered and using various earthquake records, relative displacements are mathematically investigated. Different equations to determine the value of damping ratio are collected and the results of evaluations are listed for comparison among them to present a new equation for determination of impact damping ratio. Presented equation is depends significantly on impact velocity before and after impact based on artificial neural network, which the accuracy of them is investigated and also confirmed. In order to select the optimum equation, hysteresisloop of impact between base of building and rubber bumper is considered and compared with the hysteresis loop of each impact, calculated by different equations. Finally, using representative equation, the effect of thickness, number and stiffness of rubber bumpers are numerically investigated. The results of analysis indicate that stiffness and number of bumpers have significantly affected in zone of impact force while the thickness of bumpers have not shown significant influence to calculate impact force during earthquake. For instance, increasing the number of bumpers, gap size between structures and also the value of stiffness is caused to decrease impact force between models. The final evaluation demonstrates that bumpers are able to decrease peak lateral displacement of top story during impact.