SGER: Testing of a New Line of Seismic Base Isolators

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Abstract : 0618183A small-scale exploratory high-risk research is proposed in the field of earthquake hazard mitigation. The goal and importance of the project lay in improvement of the earthquake-protective technique known as seismic base isolation with the help of an innovative but untested design approach. The proposed innovation will target a simple and reliable base isolation unit with a controllable isolating period. This isolation unit may provide a very effective frequency separation for the protected building superstructure. A similar approach neither exists in the public domain nor commercially. The project will include: (1)Analytical estimation of a three-degrees-of-freedom model of the isolation device and verification of how effective this structural element could be utilized for the earthquake protection of buildings; (2)Shake table testing of small-scale building model for a variety of full-scale earthquake inputs applied in two horizontal dimensions; (3)Evaluation of results of the project and verification of whether its objectives are being met. The intellectual merit of study is that it will provide a better understanding of the mechanism of seismic base isolation as a smart and practical way of mitigating earthquake induced forces in the building structures. The broader impacts of the study are (1)that it may catalyze rapid and innovative advances in the research and implementation of this type of system for design of new buildings and retrofit of existing ones to shield them against earthquake hazards, and (2) that findings of the research will be shared with the civil engineering and education communities, in particular, through creation of a web portal containing video clips of shake table experiments.