“Smart” Base Isolation Systems
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 128, Issue 10
Abstract
A “smart” base isolation strategy is proposed and shown to effectively protect structures against extreme earthquakes without sacrificing performance during the more frequent, moderate seismic events. The proposed smart base isolation system is composed of conventional low-damping elastomeric bearings and “smart” controllable (semiactive) dampers, such as magnetorheological fluid dampers. To demonstrate the advantages of this approach, the smart isolation system is compared to lead-rubber bearing isolation systems. The effectiveness of the isolation approaches are judged based on computed responses to several historical earthquakes scaled to various magnitudes. The limited performance of passive systems is revealed and the potential advantages of smart dampers are demonstrated. Two- and six-degree-of-freedom models of a base-isolated building are used as a test bed in this study. Smart isolation is shown to achieve notable decreases in base drifts over comparable passive systems with no accompanying increase in base shears or in accelerations imparted to the superstructure. In contrast to passive lead-rubber bearing systems, the adaptable nature of the smart damper isolation system provides good protection to both the structure and its contents over a wide range of ground motions and magnitudes.
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Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 128 • Issue 10 • October 2002
Pages: 1088 - 1099
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 23, 2000
Accepted: Mar 29, 2002
Published online: Sep 13, 2002
Published in print: Oct 2002
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