Earthquake and blast induced pounding in SMA supplemented base isolated structures

The pounding, which is a phenomenon in which one building collides with the other during a seismic event, occurs mostly in urban and metro areas where adequate space between the two adjoining buildings is limited. The pounding due to Earthquake Ground Motions (EGM) and Blast Induced Ground Motion (BIGM) on low to the medium rise building structure is the focus of attention in this paper. The smart materials such as Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) are used in base-isolation with conventional bearings such as Elastomeric Rubber Bearing, New-Zealand Bearing, Friction Pendulum System, and Resilient Friction Bearing system. The impact of base-isolated multi-story buildings is investigated in this study under various blast and real earthquake ground motions. The key parameters for the study are maximum top floor accelerations and bearing displacements. The SMA modelling is carried out using Graesser-Cozzarelli model. The BIGM is modelled using exponentially decaying function. The conventional bearings such as New-Zealand shows reductions in top floor acceleration, however, the residual displacement is still the main problem associated with these conventional bearings. In the event of earthquake and blast-induced pounding between adjoining structures, the use of SMA with conventional bearings helps to reduce top floor acceleration as well as bearing displacements.