<title>Shaking table tests on earthquake response reduction effects of rocking structural systems</title>

Abstract

The shaking table tests are carried out to examine the seismic responses of rocking structural systems with yielding base plates (base plate yielding systems). When subjected to a strong earthquake ground motion, these systems can cause rocking vibration with base plate yielding to reduce the seismic responses of buildings. In the tests, the seismic responses of test frames are compared with those of fixed-base systems and simple rocking systems. The test frames are the steel frames of one-third scale which have one bay and five stories. The total height and width are 5 and 2 meters, respectively. In tests of the base plate yielding systems, the yielding base plates are attached at the bases of these frames. Furthermore, to predict the seismic responses of base plate yielding systems, such as up-lift displacements, base shears and roof displacements, we propose a simple prediction method using an equivalent single degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system. It is concluded that the base plate yielding systems can reduce effectively the seismic response of building structures and their seismic responses are predicted by the proposed method appropriately.