Seismic Response Control Strategies for Buildings

Seismic response control strategies of buildings are the preventive measures against catastrophic damage in the event of an earthquake. The seismic response control of buildings improves their performance during earthquakes and was first proposed more than a century ago, but it came into practice only in the last 30 years. Several seismic response control strategies emerged to lessen the consequences of the destructive seismic loads. More popular seismic response control strategies the are addition of shear walls and base isolation. A comparative study is conducted to access the effectiveness of these two control strategies. A five-storied building is considered for this purpose and modeled in SAP2000 software. In one building, shear wall is designed and added, to resist lateral loads. In the other building with similar dimensions, base isolation is designed to resist lateral loads. Wide column method is used for modeling the shear wall. Rubber isolator element available in SAP2000 software is used for modeling the base isolation. Inferences are being drawn on the seismic behavior of each case. Construction feasibility of each case is also discussed.