Determination of Peak Impact Force for Buildings Exposed to Structural Pounding during Earthquakes

Abstract

Structural pounding between adjacent, insufficiently separated buildings, or bridge segments, has been repeatedly observed during seismic excitations. Such earthquake-induced collisions may cause severe structural damage or even lead to the collapse of colliding structures. The aim of the present paper was to show the results of the study focused on determination of peak impact forces during collisions between buildings exposed to different seismic excitations. A set of different ground motion records, with various peak ground acceleration (PGA) values and frequency contents, were considered. First, pounding-involved numerical analysis was conducted for the basic parameters of colliding buildings. Then, the parametric study was carried out for different structural natural periods, structural damping ratios, gap sizes between buildings and coefficients of restitution. The results of the analysis conducted for the basic structural parameters indicate that the largest response of the analysed buildings was observed for the Duzce earthquake. The parametric study showed that the pounding-involved structural response depended substantially on all parameters considered in the analysis, and the largest response was observed for different ground motions. The results of the study presented in this paper indicate that the value of the peak impact force expected during the time of the earthquake does not depend on the PGA value of ground motion, but rather on the frequency contents of excitation and pounding scenario. It is therefore recommended that the peak impact force for buildings exposed to structural pounding during earthquakes should be determined individually for the specific structural configuration taking into account the design ground motion.

Fragility Analysis of Structural Pounding Between Adjacent Structures Arranged in Series With Various Alignment Configurations Under Near-field Earthquakes

“…Therefore, considering the design earthquake, it is advisable to individually determine the peak impact force of the building exposed to the impact of the structure during the ground movement for a particular con guration of structures. (Khatami et al, 2020). So far, in order to calculate the necessary seismic separation distance between neighboring buildings, much research has been conducted, each of which has presented a new formula, and in some of them, the effect of the period of colliding structures has been considered (Naderpour et al, 2017).…”

Fragility analysis of structural pounding between adjacent structures arranged in series with various alignment configurations under near-field earthquakes

“…Therefore, considering the design earthquake, it is advisable to individually determine the peak impact force of the building exposed to the impact of the structure during the ground movement for a particular configuration of structures. (Khatami et al 2020). So far, in order to calculate the necessary seismic separation distance between neighboring buildings, much research has been conducted, each of which has presented a new formula, and in some of them, the effect of the period of colliding structures has been considered (Naderpour et al 2017).…”

Seismic Pounding Between Adjacent Buildings: A Review

“…Earthquakes, however, keep deepening the knowledge of the scientific community and keep raising the awareness of the scientific, technical and political community to the need of identifying assets at risk (i.e., such adjacent buildings) and developing more effective risk mitigation strategies. Based on the provided lessons from major earthquakes, a vast body of literature addressing the pounding effects on the structural response of adjacent structures during earthquakes have been found over the past five decades (e.g., see [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] among others). The research on earthquake-induced pounding was found in different scales; from studying the impact phenomena to the global performance of the adjacent structures.…”