The mid-story isolation design method is recently gaining popularity for the seismic protective design of buildings located in the areas of high population. In a mid-story isolated building, the isolation system is incorporated into the mid-story rather than the base of the building. In this paper, the dynamic characteristics and seismic responses of mid-story isolated buildings are investigated using a simplified three-lumpedmass structural model for which equivalent linear properties are formulated. From the parametric study, it is found that the nominal frequencies of the superstructure and the substructure, respectively, above and below the isolation system have significant influences on the isolation frequency and equivalent damping ratio of a mid-story isolated building. Moreover, the mass and stiffness of the substructure are of greater significance than the superstructure in affecting the dynamic characteristics of the isolated building. Besides, based on the response spectrum analysis, it is noted that the higher mode responses may contribute significantly to the story shear force of the substructure. Consequently, the equivalent lateral force procedure of design codes should carefully include the effects of higher modes.S.-J. WANG ET AL.(r sub , r sup )=(1, 5) (r sub , r sup )=(2, 5)

SUMMARY The rolling motion of mutually orthogonal rollers respectively sandwiched between two bearing plates in which one or both have V‐shaped sloping surfaces makes the sloped rolling‐type isolation device have an excellent in‐plane seismic isolation performance. In this study, the sloped rolling type isolation device in which a single roller moves between two V‐shaped sloping surfaces along each principle horizontal direction is refined by incorporating multi‐roller, built‐in damping, and pounding prevention mechanisms. The associated dynamic behavior is further clarified, and a simplified twin‐flag hysteretic model, which can be easily applied in most commercial computational tools is then proposed. Seismic simulation tests on the refined isolation devices (i.e. the sloped multi‐roller isolation devices) with different design parameters such as sloping angles of bearing plates and built‐in damping capabilities, together with a raised floor system by employing the sloped multi‐roller isolation devices, were conducted. Not only is the efficiency of the sloped multi‐roller isolation devices in seismically protecting the important objects, but also the practicability and accuracy of the proposed simplified numerical model in predicting the seismic responses of the sloped multi‐roller isolation devices is experimentally verified. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

SUMMARY In a midstory isolated building, the isolation system is incorporated into the midstory rather than the base of the building. Because of the flexibility of the substructure below the isolation system in a midstory isolated building, the contribution of higher modes to the seismic responses of the midstory isolated structure may not be negligible, especially when the coupling of higher modes exists. To investigate this modal coupling effect, a simplified three‐lumped‐mass structural model of the midstory isolated building is assumed in this study. Through the equivalent linear analysis and shaking table tests, it is found that the coupling of higher modes may lead to enlarged acceleration responses at the super‐floor and superstructure above the isolation layer. Accordingly, a simple method to prevent the midstory isolation design from the coupling of higher modes attributed to the improper design of the substructure and superstructure is proposed in this paper. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.