Investigation on Damage-Involved Structural Response of Colliding Steel Structures during Ground Motions

Abstract

Earthquakes are the most unpredictable damaging loads which can affect civil engineering structures. Due to insufficient separation distance between adjacent structures with different dynamic properties, structural collisions may occur during ground motions. Although the research on structural pounding has recently been much advanced, the studies have mainly been conducted for concrete structures. The aim of this paper is to show the results of experimental investigation, focused on dynamic behaviour of closely-separated three models of steel structures which have been subjected to damaging earthquake excitations. The study was performed using three models of steel towers with different dynamic parameters and various distances between the structures. The acceleration time histories of the Kobe and the Northridge earthquakes were applied as the seismic excitation. The unidirectional shaking table, located at the Gdansk University of Technology (Poland), was used in the experimental study. The results have confirmed that collisions may lead to the increase in the structural response, although they may also play a positive role, depending on the size of the separation gap between the structures.