Study of the Effect of Seismic Pounding on Tall Buildings

Abstract

The building structures are vulnerable to severe damage and collapse due to strong ground motion. Among the various structural damages, pounding damage is the most serious one. This is the most serious seismic hazard usually occur in highly populated areas during earthquake. Pounding is mainly observed when there is insufficient gap between the adjacent buildings. This scenario mainly is in urban areas where multi-storey buildings are closely occupied due to non-availability of sufficient land or may due to high land value. The adjacent buildings with insufficient gap may collide each other under strong ground motion which results in the damage of the structure. Hence, it is necessary to study of the effect of pounding on buildings. Here, the dynamic analysis of the effect of pounding on building is studied using the software SAP 2000. Two adjacent RC frame structures are considered for the analysis. The building structure is modelled and analyzed for pounding and without pounding case. Non-linear time history method of dynamic analysis has been used in this study. Later the effect of shear wall and cross braces on seismic pounding is studied. The parameters considered for the study are storey displacement and drift. This study mainly focuses on the effect of mitigation techniques on pounding to determine the efficient method for minimizing the damages under seismic effect.