Numeric Validation of 3D Printer Technology Applied to Story Isolation on Tall Buildings

Abstract

Isolation technique on tall buildings is becoming increasingly common in large urban centers in order to ensure structural integrity and performance. In particular, while base isolation allows to decouple the structure from the ground considering the entire structure as a unique block, story isolation is able to separate upper levels from lower parts. It consists of intentionally concentrating seismic energy dissipation in interfaces between selected parts of the structures in order to interrupt the flux of energy between stories. In literature there are applications that demonstrate this principle without conducing lab tests because of extreme costs. In this paper, 3D printer new technology has been applied in order to reproduce on a small shake table scaled representative 3D models of a 20 stories tall building. The models have been then performed with numerical simulations in order to understand if 3D printer technology can be applied in this kind of research.