• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-24
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• 2011

During very strong earthquakes, seismically isolated buildings may experience large horizontal relative displacements, which may lead to poundings if an insufficiently wide clearance is provided around the building. This paper investigates, through numerical simulations, the effectiveness of using rubber bumpers, which could be attached at locations where it is likely to have impacts, in order to act as shock-absorbers. For the simulation of the dynamic behavior of such rubber bumpers during impacts, a nonlinear force-based impact model, which takes into account the finite thickness of the rubber bumpers, has been developed. Subsequently, a series of parametric analyses are performed to assess the effect of the gap size, the earthquake characteristics and the thickness, compressive capacity and damping of the bumpers. The stiffness of the moat wall is also parametrically considered during poundings of a seismically isolated building, as another potential mitigation measure for poundings of seismically isolated buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.377-386
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• 2017

Earthquake-induced pounding damages to building structures were repeatedly observed in many previous major earthquakes. Extensive researches have been carried out in this field. Previous studies mainly focused on the regular shaped buildings and each building was normally simplified as a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system or a multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) system by assuming the masses of the building lumped at the floor levels. The researches on the pounding responses between irregular asymmetric buildings are rare. For the asymmetric buildings subjected to earthquake loading, torsional vibration modes of the structures are excited, which in turn may significantly change the structural responses. Moreover, contact element was normally used to consider the pounding phenomenon in previous studies, which may result in inaccurate estimations of the structural responses since this method is based on the point-to-point pounding assumption with the predetermined pounding locations. In reality, poundings may take place between any locations. In other words, the pounding locations cannot be predefined. To more realistically consider the arbitrary poundings between asymmetric structures, detailed three-dimensional (3D) finite element models (FEM) and arbitrary pounding algorithm are necessary. This paper carries out numerical simulations on the pounding responses between a symmetric rectangular-shaped building and an asymmetric L-shaped building by using the explicit finite element code LS-DYNA. The detailed 3D FEMs are developed and arbitrary 3D pounding locations between these two buildings under bi-directional earthquake ground motions are investigated. Special attention is paid to the relative locations of two adjacent buildings. The influences of the left-and-right, fore-and-aft relative locations and separation gap between the two buildings on the pounding responses are systematically investigated.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.295-307
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• 2021

The gap provided between adjacent structures in the metropolitan cities is mostly narrow due to architectural and financial issues. Consequently, structural pounding occurs between adjacent structures during earthquakes. It causes damages, ranging from minor local to more severe ones, especially in the case of seismically isolated buildings, due to their higher displacements. However, due to the increased flexibility of isolated buildings, the problem could become more detrimental to such structures. The effect of the seismic pounding of moat walls on the response of buildings isolated by Triple Friction Pendulum Bearing (TFPB) is investigated in this paper. To this propose, two symmetric three-dimensional models, including single-story and five-story buildings, are modeled in Opensees. Nonlinear Time History Analyses (NTHA) are performed for seismic evaluation. Also, five different sizes with four different sets of friction coefficients are considered for base isolators to cover a whole range of base isolation systems with various geometry configurations and fundamental period. The results are investigated in terms of base shear, buildings' drift, and roof acceleration. Results indicated a profound effect of poundings against moat walls. In situations of potential pounding, in some cases, the influence of impact on seismic responses of multistory buildings was more remarkable.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.291-300
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• 1999

An idealized analytical model is proposed to estimate the effects of restrainer upon global response behaviors of a bridge system under seismic excitations. Pounding actions between adjacent vibration units and friction at movable supports are introduced in addition to other phenomena such as nonlinear behaviors of pier, motions of the foundation and abutment to achieve the better prediction of the bridge motion. The applied restrainer is assumed to be a dead-band system, which has the force clearance and the linear-elastic force. Using the proposed model, the dynamic characteristics of a bridge system retrofitted by restrainers is examined, and the effects of stiffness and clearance length of restrainer is also investigated. The main effect of the application of restrainers is found to reduce the relative displacements and the trend becomes greater with the shorter clearance length except between pier units. It is found that the relative displacements between abutment and adjacent pier units are decreased as the stiffness of restrainer increases, but almost independent upon the stiffness increments of restrainer. However, the relative displacements between pier units tend to be increased due to the applications of the restrainers.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.621-633
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• 2000

Dynamic responses of a bridge system with several simple spans under longitudinal seismic excitations are examined. The bridge system is modeled as the multiple oscillators and each oscillator consists of four degrees-of-freedom system to implement the poundings between the adjacent oscillators and the friction at movable supports. Pounding effects are considered by introducing the impact elements and a bi-linear model is adopted for the friction force. From the parametric studies, the pounding is found to induce complicated seismic responses and to restrain significantly the relative displacements between the adjacent units. The smaller gap size also restricts more strictly the relative displacement. It is found that the relative displacements between the abutment and adjacent pier unit became much larger than the responses between the inner pier units. Consequently, the unseating failure could take a place between the abutment and nearby pier units. It is also found that the relative displacements of an abutment unit to the adjacent pier unit are governed by the pounding at the opposite side abutment.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.463-475
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• 2024

The study aims to investigate the pounding that occurs between the isolator's ring and slider of isolated structures resulting from excessive seismic excitation, while considering soil-structure interaction. The dynamic responses and poundings of structures subjected a series seismic records were comparatively analyzed for three different soil types and fixed-base structures. A series of parametric studies were conducted to thoroughly discuss the effects of the impact displacement ratio, the FPB friction coefficient ratio, and the radius ratio on the structural dynamic response when considering impact and SSI. It was found that the pounding is extremely brief, with an exceptionally large pounding force generated by impact, resulting in significant acceleration pulse. The acceleration and inter-story shear force of the structure experiencing pounding were greater than those without considering pounding. Sudden changes in the inter-story shear force between the first and second floors of the structure were also observed. The dynamic response of structures in soft ground was significantly lower than that of structures in other ground conditions under the same conditions, regardless of the earthquake wave exciting the structure. When the structure is influenced by pulse-type earthquake records, its dynamic response exhibits a trend of first intensifying and then weakening as the equivalent radius ratio and friction coefficient ratio increase. However, it increases with an increase in the pounding displacement ratio, equivalent radius ratio, friction coefficient ratio, and displacement ratio when the structures are subjected to non-pulse-type seismic record.