Recent Advances in Seismic Isolation: Methods and Tools

Abstract

Highlights of the problem of seismic protection of structures and their contents are presented. The seismic isolation technology currently in use is essentially the same technology proposed almost 30 years ago when first applied in building and bridges. The limitations of these isolation systems in the design of structures are briefly presented. The potential of recently proposed seismic isolation hardware to achieve high performance multi objective designs is discussed. Seismic isolators providing uplift restraint, double curved friction pendulum (FP) isolators and Triple FP bearings are presented and their behavior described. A Plasticity-based model for the double curvature FP isolator and a mechanics-based model for the triple FP bearing are introduced. It is critical to provide to engineers reliable tools and software with the ability to perform detailed parametric analyses for the preliminary design phase and detailed realistic analyses for final design. The models of the pendulum type of bearings are implemented in 3DBASIS-ME-MB software which, in addition, can be utilized as independent verification tool of more complex commercial software.