Comparison of Analytical Models for Seismic Induced Pounding in Buildings – A Review

Abstract

During an earthquake, buildings will have a tendency to sway too much and when the relative displacements between the buildings become greater than their separation gap, collision occurs. This results in serious damage or sometimes destruction of the structure. This phenomenon is termed as seismic pounding. In cities, because of large number of occupants and high land values, buildings are being constructed without enough separation gap between two buildings. Many numerical models were proposed over the past few years for calculating the force of collision during pounding. In this paper, a comparative study based on efficacy of various contact models like linear spring, linear viscoelastic (Kelvin-Voigt), modified linear viscoelastic, Hertz non linear, Hertzdamp and non linear viscolestic models are carried out. In addition to this, a study on a model proposed by Wang et.al. (Wang model) to analyse low speed pounding between viscoelatic material and steel is also carried out. The results of the study indicated that, Hertzdamp model is considered to be the best model for simulating the pounding behaviour generally. But in case of low speed pounding (at range from 0.025 to 0.15m/s) Wang model is best suited.