Abstract
Structural pounding between adjacent, insufficiently separated buildings, or bridge segments, has been repeatedly observed during seismic excitations. Such earthquake-induced collisions may cause severe structural damage or even lead to the collapse of colliding structures. The aim of the present paper was to show the results of the study focused on determination of peak impact forces during collisions between buildings exposed to different seismic excitations. A set of different ground motion records, with various peak ground acceleration (PGA) values and frequency contents, were considered. First, pounding-involved numerical analysis was conducted for the basic parameters of colliding buildings. Then, the parametric study was carried out for different structural natural periods, structural damping ratios, gap sizes between buildings and coefficients of restitution. The results of the analysis conducted for the basic structural parameters indicate that the largest response of the analysed buildings was observed for the Duzce earthquake. The parametric study showed that the pounding-involved structural response depended substantially on all parameters considered in the analysis, and the largest response was observed for different ground motions. The results of the study presented in this paper indicate that the value of the peak impact force expected during the time of the earthquake does not depend on the PGA value of ground motion, but rather on the frequency contents of excitation and pounding scenario. It is therefore recommended that the peak impact force for buildings exposed to structural pounding during earthquakes should be determined individually for the specific structural configuration taking into account the design ground motion.
Highlights
During seismic excitations, adjacent insufficiently separated buildings, or bridge segments, may collide with each other because of different dynamic characteristics or spatial seismic effects related to propagation of seismic wave [1,2,3,4]
The results shown in the figure indicate that the largest response was observed for the Duzce earthquake, for which the peak impact force and the peak impact displacement was as large as 7.6 kN and 10 cm, respectively
The results of the study, which focused on the determination of peak impact forces during collisions between two buildings exposed to seismic excitations, are shown in the paper
Summary
Adjacent insufficiently separated buildings, or bridge segments, may collide with each other because of different dynamic characteristics or spatial seismic effects related to propagation of seismic wave [1,2,3,4]. The phenomenon, known as the earthquake-induced structural pounding, may cause severe structural damage or even lead to the collapse of colliding structures [5,6]. The effects of structural pounding during earthquakes have been intensively studied for more than three decades. Anagnostopoulos [1,7] was among the first researchers who described the philosophy of building pounding by experimental and numerical investigations. He suggested using the linear viscoelastic model of collisions in numerical analyses. He justified the model based on coefficient
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