City Research Online

Abstract

Interaction between closely-spaced buildings subject to earthquake induced strong ground motions, termed in the literature as “seismic pounding”, occurs commonly during major seismic events in contemporary congested urban environments. This influence is not taken into account by current codes of practice and is rarely considered in practice at the design stage of new buildings constructed “in contact” with existing ones. Thus far, limited research work has been devoted to quantify the influence of slab-to-slab pounding on the inelastic seismic demands at critical locations of structural members in adjacent structures that are not aligned in series. In this respect, this paper considers a typical case study of a “new” reinforced concrete (R/C) EC8-compliant, torsionally sensitive, 7-story corner building constructed within a block, in bi-lateral contact with two existing R/C 5-story structures with same height floors. A non-linear local plasticity numerical model is developed and a series of non-linear time-history analyses is undertaken considering the corner building “in isolation” from the existing ones (no-pounding case), and in combination with the existing ones (pounding case). Numerical results are reported in terms of averages of ratios of peak inelastic rotation demands at all structural elements (beams, columns, shear walls) at each storey. It is shown that seismic pounding reduces on average the inelastic demands of the structural members at the lower floors of the 7-story building. However, the discrepancy in structural response of the entire block due to torsion-induced, bi-directionally seismic pounding is substantial as a result of the complex nonlinear dynamics of the coupled building block system.

Publication Type:	Article
Publisher Keywords:	Science & Technology; Technology; Engineering, Civil; Engineering, Geological; Engineering; seismic pounding; EC8 compliant buildings; three-dimensional model; ductility demand; spectrum compatible accelerograms; incremental dynamic analysis; HERTZ CONTACT MODEL; EARTHQUAKE EXCITATION; INVOLVED RESPONSE; SIMULATION; SEPARATION; DAMAGE
Subjects:	T Technology > T Technology (General) T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Departments:	School of Science & Technology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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