Soil-Structure-Interaction And Seismic Isolation, An Interdisciplinary Investigation At the multidisciplinary Seismic Test Site Incerc, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The Collaborative Research Center 461 (CRC 461) “Strong earthquakes: A Challenge for Geosciences and Civil Engineering” (Germany) and the Romanian Group for “Strong Vrancea Earthquakes” work on a multidisciplinary attempt towards the mitigation of the impact of the next strong Vrancea earthquake (Romania). The recently installed Multidisciplinary Seismic Test Site INCERC (MSTS) located in the eastern part of Bucharest serves as focus to study the entire sequence relevant in engineering seismology including structural dynamics, seismology, soil mechanics, and engineering geology. Within this co-operation, the complete chain for seismic hazard and seismic risk analysis and can be checked and verified. For this purpose a base isolated test building was constructed, where acceleration will be measured at the base and at the top. Additionally, free field accelerometers in various depths were installed. Thus, free field accelerations and the response of the test building can be measured simultaneously. In this paper we want to focus on the test building. One mainly task, among others, is to investigate the dynamic behaviour of rubber bearings under seismic loading, including soil-structure-interaction. Geotechnical parameters which will be available to a depth of 180 m ensure that the soil-structure-interaction incorporating the seismic behaviour of rubber bearings can be computationally studied with FE methods. These calculations include constitutive laws describing non-linear behaviour of rubber and soil material under cyclic loading. M. Erdik et al. (eds.), Strong Motion Instrumentation for Civil Engineering Structures, 369–381.