Displacement prediction equations for seismic design of single friction pendulum base‐isolated structures

Abstract

We propose a set of equations for preliminary risk‐targeted seismic design of structures base‐isolated using single friction pendulum (SFP) bearings. The equations offer statistical estimates of the maximum displacement of the superstructure relative to the base and the maximum displacement of the isolated base response quantities of interest (RQIs), given ground motion intensity measures and the essential dynamic properties of the SFP bearing base‐isolated structure. The set of proposed equations enables preliminary seismic design of SFP base‐isolated structures using the mean annual frequency of exceeding displacement‐defined limit states related to the two RQIs. To develop the design equations, we define and use a two‐degree‐of‐freedom (2DOF) surrogate model that features a few essential dynamic parameters of the SFP bearing base‐isolated structure. We first verify that the 2DOF surrogate model is accurate enough to represent the base and superstructure displacements compared to the complete multiple‐degree‐of‐freedom model of the prototype SFP bearing base‐isolated structure. Next, we perform more than 5 million non‐linear dynamical analyses of 4900 distinct 2DOF surrogates subjected to 210 different recorded ground motions scaled five times. We fit the response data of each 2DOF surrogate to a linear model and use two different modeling techniques to derive the design equations. One model is based on Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE), and the other model is based on Linear Regression (LR). The PCE model is more accurate than the LR model, with the trade‐off regarding its simplicity. Nevertheless, both the PCE and the LR models are accurate enough to estimate the design quantities of interest of the SFP bearing base‐isolated structure for preliminary design purposes. Lastly, we exemplify the use of the proposed design equations and we show that the estimate of base displacement is conservative in the cases when the superstructure of the SPF bearing base‐isolated structure yields.