Seismic Pounding between Adjacent Building Structures

Investigations of past and recent earthquake damage have illustrated that the building structures are vulnerable to severe damage and/or collapse during moderate to strong ground motion. Among the possible structural damages, seismic induced pounding has been commonly observed in several earthquakes. A parametric study on buildings pounding response as well as proper seismic hazard mitigation practice for adjacent buildings is carried out. Three categories of recorded earthquake excitation are used for input. The effect of impact is studied using linear and nonlinear contact force model for different separation distances and compared with nominal model without pounding consideration. Pounding produces acceleration and shear at various story levels that are greater than those obtained from the no pounding case, while the peak drift depends on the input excitation characteristics. Also, increasing gap width is likely to be effective when the separation is sufficiently wide practically to eliminate contact.