Author(s)

M. Abdel-Mooty, H. Al-Atrpy & M. Ghouneim

Abstract

Pounding or collisions between adjacent buildings occur as a result of building lateral vibrations during strong ground shaking. Pounding creates additional forces and causes damage to buildings, finishing at the point of collision. In this paper, the pounding phenomenon is thoroughly studied where the different factors affecting pounding and its mitigation are investigated. The formulation of pounding equations clearly indicates the nonlinear nature of the problem. Therefore, nonlinear numerical analysis is used for pounding force and displacement calculation. A detailed parametric study is carried out to investigate the effect of various parameters on the structural pounding. Of the many factors influencing the seismic pounding of adjacent buildings, the most important ones are identified and further studied. Among such factors are the earthquake record, the separation distance, the structural system in terms of stiffness and mass distribution, and the building height. One of the variables not thoroughly investigated in previous research and addressed in this paper is the effect of structural damage and cracking on pounding. In total a combination of 144 cases are investigated in this parametric study. Finally, the analysis of the results was carried out where general trends are identified and the effects of the various factors are evaluated. Keywords: pounding, separation distance, seismic gap, nonlinear modeling, parametric study.

Keywords

pounding, separation distance, seismic gap, nonlinear modeling, parametric study.