A mid-story seismic isolated building has isolators at mid-story and it is a good candidate for seismic retrofitting. Elevators for mid-story seismic isolated buildings receive strong rail bending stress due to the floor gap at the isolated floor. To reduce rail stress, a new elevator system has been established that has a long rail support span at the isolated floor. But it has complicated dynamic behavior including large rail deformation and guide contact with the rail. To evaluate such dynamic responses, we developed a nonlinear finite element model. Simulation results were validated by experiments, with the model. After precisely checking the rail bending stress, we derived an optimal elevator design against earthquakes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.