ANALYTICAL PREDICTION OF EXPERIMENTAL BUILDING POUNDING

Valuable insights on the problem of seismic pounding have been obtaine d recently from analytical studies. So far, the proposed analytical mo dels have not been validated experimentally. This paper presents the r esults of shake table tests of pounding between adjacent three- and ei ght-storey single-bay steel framed model structures. The pounding resp onse of the frames was measured for various earthquake intensities and initial separations. The experimental results were compared to the pr edictions resulting from two existing pounding analysis programs. The solution strategy of the first program, SLAM-2, is based on a modal su perposition technique. The second program, PC-ANSR, is a non-linear ti me-step analysis code in which an elastic gap element has been include d. Modelling the pounding effect by elastic gap elements in the two pr ograms produced accurate displacement and impact force results. Amplit udes of short acceleration pulses were not well predicted, however, fo r practical time-step increments. Relative rotations between adjacent floors induced grinding contacts which cannot be captured by uni-axial gap elements.